Inclusion London and Disability Rights UK are holding a workshop on 9^th August about the Renters Reform Bill and how it affects Disabled people.

 The session will take place online from 11 am to 1 pm.

The session is intended for Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations (DDPOs) and their members, who want to understand what the Renters’ Reform Bill is about. We want to hear DDPOs’ feedback about the Bill, find out about any concerns, and consider how we could influence the Bill.

You can register for the session on Zoom.

MPs launch inquiry into DWP safeguarding, after decade of deaths

MPs are to launch an inquiry into safeguarding arrangements at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), following countless deaths of disabled benefit claimants linked to its actions and failings over more than a decade.

The Commons work and pensions committee will investigate if DWP has a duty to safeguard “vulnerable people”, and if it does not, whether it should, it will announce tomorrow (Friday).

It is set to take evidence from coroners who have heard inquests into the deaths of claimants, lawyers who have taken legal cases against DWP, and the families of claimants who have died.

Disabled campaigners and allies have been pushing for years for an independent inquiry into deaths linked to DWP’s actions.

Although the committee’s investigation will be a more limited inquiry and will be led by MPs, with a Conservative majority on the committee, it is set to be the first serious public investigation into safeguarding at DWP since reports of deaths first began emerging in the early years of the 2010 Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission promised to carry out an inquiry into links between DWP’s work capability assessment and the deaths of claimants, but it was heavily criticised after it dropped those plans.

Ministers have repeatedly refused to commission any kind of inquiry, or ignored calls to set one up, despite years of evidence that DWP’s actions have led to hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths.

The work and pensions committee agreed to launch an inquiry after pressure from Labour’s Debbie Abrahams and her Conservative colleague Nigel Mills.

Abrahams told Disability News Service (DNS) this morning (Thursday): “After years of pushing the government for an independent inquiry into the deaths of social security claimants, the work and pensions select committee have agreed to an inquiry investigating safeguarding arrangements at the DWP.

“The committee will be inviting coroners and lawyers who have been involved in the inquests and court cases concerning the deaths of people who died while they were in receipt of benefits or shortly afterwards.

“But we will also be inviting families of loved ones who have died to provide us with evidence in writing and in person.

“So I would urge everyone who has a story which may not have been heard to get in touch.”

She added: “I’m very grateful to all members of the committee for agreeing to this inquiry including Nigel Mills MP for helping to draft the terms of reference for this.”

Grassroots groups of disabled people, such as Black Triangle, Disabled People Against Cuts, the Mental Health Resistance Network, and the Spartacus network, have spent years highlighting deaths linked to DWP’s actions.

Concerns have also been raised by relatives who have called for action after the deaths of their family members.

Some of them have spent years campaigning for justice.

Among them are the families of Philippa Day, Jodey Whiting, David Clapson, James Oliver, Errol Graham and Mark Wood.

Some of the evidence linking DWP with the deaths of benefit claimants has come through prevention of future deaths reports written by coroners, several of which only emerged years after they were written.

Other evidence of persistent DWP safeguarding flaws emerged through freedom of information requests to the department which have revealed how hundreds of recommendations for improvements have been made by the department’s own secret reviews into the deaths of claimants.

Some of these reviews showed DWP staff continuing to make the same fatal errors, year after year.

Evidence collected by DNS and others, stretching back more than a decade, has shown how DWP repeatedly ignored recommendations to improve the safety of its disability benefits assessment system, leading to countless avoidable deaths.

It also shows how DWP hid evidence from independent reviews, and how the department failed to keep track of the actions taken in response to recommendations made by its own secret reviews.

Evidence also demonstrates that the cultural problems within DWP extend far beyond the assessment system, touching all aspects of its dealings with disabled people in the social security system.

The evidence, compiled over the last decade by DNS and also by other journalists, academics and activists, shows systemic negligence by DWP, a culture of cover-up and denial, and a refusal to accept that the department has a duty of care to those disabled people claiming support through the social security system.

Much of that evidence has been brought together in a detailed timeline, as part of the Deaths by Welfare project headed by Dr China Mills and supported by Healing Justice London, which works with marginalised and oppressed communities.

20 July 2023

Pursglove publishes ‘action plan’ of working groups, reviews and awareness-raising

The minister for disabled people has launched a new “disability action plan” that he claims will “help transform disabled people’s everyday lives for the better”, but which includes no new spending commitments or promised legislation.

Tom Pursglove said his draft Disability Action Plan – dismissed today as a “PR exercise” by one disabled people’s organisation – would improve disabled people’s lives and “lay the foundations for longer-term change”.

But a consultation document on the plan asks disabled people to comment on just 12 proposed new policies, all of which are low or zero budget measures.

Pursglove’s Disability Unit says it will launch a review, set up a new webpage, draw up two sets of guidance and two feasibility studies, carry out awareness-raising across several policy areas, hold cross-government discussions, set up a cross-government working group, commission two lots of research, set up two taskforces, and carry out cross-government profile-raising activity.

Pursglove says this is the “immediate action” the government plans to take in 2023 and 2024 to move towards making the country “the most accessible place in the world for disabled people to live, work and thrive”.

Among its actions, the plan pledges to raise awareness of assistive technology; commission a feasibility report on hosting the 2031 Special Olympics; and create a new badge for businesses to give their staff to show they have received approved “disability awareness” training, modelled partly on the discredited Disability Confident disability employment scheme.

It also aims to “explore the merits” of setting up a new fund to support disabled candidates into elected office, following two previous funds that successive Conservative-led governments set up and then scrapped.

Other proposed actions are to “consider” increasing fines for service-providers that refuse to admit guide dogs; create a webpage of guidance on creating accessible playgrounds; and improve government engagement with disabled people on emergency planning.

One proposal likely to be welcomed by many disabled activists is a plan to host a high-profile conference on how to ensure measures addressing climate change consider and respond to the needs of disabled people.

There will also be two new taskforces, one aimed at maximising disabled children’s “wellbeing and opportunities” and one at improving support for disabled parents.

Pursglove also wants the government to set up a programme to improve evidence and data on disability; and commission research to improve understanding of “emerging issues and evolving priorities” for disabled people in the next five, 10 and 20 years.

Although the action plan consultation mentions other disability-related actions that government departments are already working on, and lists the government’s “achievements” over the last year, it focuses its questions on just the 12 proposed new actions.

Svetlana Kotova, director of campaigns and justice for Inclusion London, said: “At a time of the cost-of-living crisis, when disabled people experience cuts to support and difficulties in every aspect of their life, the actions proposed are not going to make a tiny difference.

“We need transformative, deliberate and resourced actions, not a PR exercise.”

Pursglove told fellow MPs this week in a written statement that the action plan was “another important step” in meeting the Conservative manifesto commitment to “transform the everyday lives of disabled people across the country” and make the country “the most accessible place in the world for disabled people to live, work and thrive”. 

Just 24 hours later, it emerged that two separate legal actions were being taken over government-backed plans to close hundreds of rail ticket offices across the country, plans which disabled campaigners have warned would have a “disastrous impact” on disabled passengers and “risk locking disabled people out of the rail network entirely”.

Tony Jennings, co-chair of a rail accessibility panel and co-founder of the Campaign for Level Boarding, questioned how a proposal to explore the feasibility of hosting the Special Olympics would improve disabled people’s lives, when the London 2012 Paralympics failed to do so.

He said the irony of the government launching the consultation at a time when it wants to close nearly 1,000 ticket offices, which will have a drastic impact on disabled people’s confidence to travel by train, “isn’t lost on the disabled community”.

He also contrasted the insignificance of the measures in the action plan with the continued failure of the Department for Transport to force train companies to buy low-floored trains, and invest in a rolling programme of platform adjustments, which would enable level boarding and independent travel for disabled people with mobility impairments.

There are also concerns that the next Conservative government wants to means-test disability benefits as a way of cutting spending, while its plans to scrap the work capability assessment and give new powers to work coaches with no healthcare qualifications have been described as “callous” and “punitive”.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of disabled people across the country are having debt collection action taken against them every year by their local authorities over unpaid care charges.

Disability News Service also reports this week (see separate story) that key digital services used by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to run the disability benefits system are still branded “high risk” on accessibility, a year after secret DWP reports found scores of its websites and other services were failing to comply with public sector regulations.

The Disability Action Plan will sit alongside the government’s National Disability Strategy, which Pursglove said sets out its “longer-term vision to improve disabled people’s lives for the better”.

The government learned last week that the Court of Appeal had overturned a high court ruling that the strategy was unlawful.

When it was published in the summer of 2021, the strategy was described by one disabled people’s organisation (DPO) as “a cynical re-packaging of current polices and current budgets”, while the DPO Forum England said it ignored bold action on increasing benefit levels, supporting inclusive education, combating the disability employment gap, increasing accessible housing, and reforming social care.

The action plan consultation will last for 12 weeks, and ends on 6 October.

20 July 2023

Pressure mounts on ministers and rail companies over ticket office closures

Pressure is mounting on Conservative ministers and train companies over their plans to close nearly 1,000 rail ticket offices, after the Scottish government’s advisers on accessible transport described the proposals as “entirely unacceptable”.

The equality and human rights watchdog is also facing increasing pressure to speak out, after it refused to express any concern about the impact of the proposals on disabled passengers.

And the rail minister is now claiming that stations can still be described as “staffed” if in future they rely on mobile teams of rail staff covering groups of local stations, even if they visit them as infrequently as once a week.

More than 100,000 people have already responded to a series of consultations on the planned closures, which ends on Wednesday.

The Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland (MACS) has told one of the train companies, LNER, that the proposals are “entirely unacceptable” and that all ticket office closures should be halted until all online sales and station ticket machines are accessible “for all disabled passengers”.

Disability News Service has seen the MACS response to LNER’s consultation, in which the committee objects to proposals to close most of the ticket offices on its Edinburgh to London route.

Simon Watkins, rail lead for MACS, told LNER its plan should be withdrawn until it has “fully assessed the level of usage of ticket offices by disabled passengers”.

He said the concerns apply equally to the consultations published by other train operating companies planning ticket office closures, including those that do not operate in Scotland.

MACS said there was “significant evidence to show that disabled passengers are more reliant on ticket offices than other passengers”.

The UK government’s equivalent body, the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, has yet to comment on the closures.

Meanwhile, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has refused to express any concern over the proposals, despite being passed figures compiled by the Association of British Commuters that show the number of staffed stations, across just three Midlands railway companies, will fall from 116 to 22 if the closures go ahead.

It has also failed to comment on concerns about the accessibility of the consultation process.

Asked to comment by Disability News Service (DNS), it produced the same statement it issued on the day the consultations were launched, which failed to even mention the consultations.

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and ABC have each written to the commission to ask it to speak publicly about the closures.

The DPAC letter asks the commission to explain why it is “failing so miserably in even attempting to enforce adherence to the Equality Act”.

Linda Burnip, DPAC’s co-founder, says in the letter that the ability to travel by rail “will seriously deteriorate for disabled, older people and lone women travellers and that all of these groups need face-to-face assistance located in one accessible place”.

The ABC figures show there will be “mass discrimination” across Midlands train stations if the closures go ahead.

Its research provides further evidence that rail minister Huw Merriman misled MPs when he claimed earlier this month that “no currently staffed stations will be unstaffed” as a result of the ticket office closures.

The ABC figures show that the number of staffed stations across West Midlands Railway, London Northwestern Railway and East Midlands Railway will fall from 116 to just 22.

DNS showed last week that at least three train companies would move some stations from being staffed part-time to relying on mobile teams that cover a group of local stations.

But the Department for Transport suggested yesterday (Wednesday) that the minister had not misled MPs because having mobile teams covering several otherwise unstaffed stations meant those stations could still be described as “staffed”, even if they are only visited once a week.

The Rail Delivery Group (RDG), which represents the companies that run Britain’s railways, refused to comment on the ABC figures, saying it could not “pre-judge the consultation”, even though the figures for proposed closures were published by its member companies.

Asked why RDG had not released figures showing the impact on total staffing hours across the country, and on opening hours for heated waiting rooms and toilets, a spokesperson said the documents released by the train companies were “just proposals and any information on those areas would not be accurate until final decisions are made on individual offices and facilities”.

Transport Focus and London TravelWatch said today (Thursday) that they have already received more than 100,000 responses to the consultations, which end on Wednesday (26 July).

Meanwhile, train companies are facing at least two legal actions over the planned closures (see separate story).

In one of them, disabled activists Doug Paulley and Sarah Leadbetter are calling for a new consultation process, and a halt to any decisions on ticket office closures, in a legal action they are taking against transport secretary Mark Harper and four train companies.

They believe the consultations are “a smokescreen” and that the government has already decided to close ticket offices.

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, and four other Labour mayors, are preparing their own legal action against seven train companies over the closures.

20 July 2023

Activists launch legal action over ‘woefully inadequate’ ticket office consultations

Disabled activists have launched a legal action against four train companies and a government minister over a series of “woefully inadequate” public consultations that will lead to the closure of nearly 1,000 rail ticket offices.

Doug Paulley and Sarah Leadbetter, both of whom are leading disabled campaigners on accessible transport and regular rail travellers, say they believe the consultations are “a smokescreen” and the government has already decided to close the ticket offices.

They have called for a new consultation process, and a halt to any decisions on closures until their legal action is resolved.

Through their solicitors, Leigh Day, they have sent urgent legal letters to four publicly-owned train companies – LNER, Southeastern, Northern and TransPennine – and transport secretary Mark Harper.

In their pre-action protocol letter, they say the rights of disabled rail passengers are already being “widely undermined” by policies that will cut the number of staff available to assist them at stations.

The letter highlights how campaigners including the Association of British Commuters have been raising concerns for months about government plans to cut staff on the railways and the impact that would have on disabled passengers.

Paulley and Leadbetter say the new proposals will see the closure of 974 ticket offices, and that it is clear the decision to close them “has been made and advanced by government”.

They also say that the 21-day consultation process will exclude many disabled people, because of its “extraordinarily short timescale” and its inaccessibility, and that the process has “multiple, serious flaws”.

And they say that information about the consultations is only available online or via standard print notices in stations, while parts of many of the online documents are inaccessible to screen-reading software, among other access concerns.

The four train operating companies have made no attempts to engage face-to-face with disabled people, while people with learning difficulties “are very unlikely to be able to understand the consultation documents available online”, the letter says.

And it says there is no clear information in the consultation documents on how the proposals will affect disabled people.

The letter also says that the statement of rail minister Huw Merriman that no currently staffed station would become unstaffed as a result of the closures was “simply not true”, as reported by Disability News Service last week.

The letter argues that the train companies, and the government, are breaching their duty to consult fairly, and breaching their duties under the Equality Act.

They say campaigners are “under the clear impression” that the ticket office closures are “a foregone conclusion” and that the train companies are “simply going through the motions of consulting”, with the government “steaming ahead with the proposals in the face of significant opposition”.

Paulley, a wheelchair-user, said: “The cuts are a fait accompli being pushed through the motions of this sham consultation, with its disingenuous claims and failure to give disabled people the information we need to respond properly.

“It is appalling that such an important topic is being handled in this manner and the process must be stopped.”

Leadbetter said: “People like me, with visual impairments, rely on ticket offices and their staff to help us when we’re travelling and their closure will be a huge blow.

“To hold a consultation that fails to properly hear the views of those who need assistance the most is woefully inadequate.”

Kate Egerton, senior associate at Leigh Day, said the consultations were “clearly unlawful and not fit for purpose”.

She said: “Not only does it fail to provide adequate time for people to respond to one of the biggest changes to our railway network in a generation, it denies a voice to disabled people who rely on ticket office staff for assistance when they travel.”

Meanwhile, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, and four other Labour mayors, are preparing their own legal action against seven train companies over the planned ticket office closures.

20 July 2023

Urgent evidence needed to help UN ‘see behind government smoke and mirrors’

Disabled people’s organisations are searching behind the government’s “smoke and mirrors” for evidence to show how disability rights have continued to regress since a UN committee’s ground-breaking report seven years ago.

The UK government is set to be examined in public in Geneva next month on how it has responded since being found guilty of “grave and systematic” violations of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in November 2016.

The UK and devolved governments had been due to be examined on their overall progress in implementing the convention, but that process has now been delayed by the pandemic until 2026.

Instead, the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities will examine the UK government on its actions since being found responsible for grave and systematic breaches of the convention in the areas of independent living, work and employment, and the right to an adequate standard of living and social protection.

Most of those breaches were caused by policies introduced by Conservative ministers at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) between 2010 and 2015.

The 2016 findings were the result of the first high-level inquiry ever carried out by the committee, which followed years of research and lobbying by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC).

The committee has decided to put aside a day in August to examine the government’s progress in implementing the recommendations made in 2016.

Linda Burnip, co-founder of DPAC, played a key role in persuading the UN committee to carry out the inquiry, alongside the late Debbie Jolly, another DPAC co-founder.

Burnip told an online meeting of disabled activists this week that such an investigation “had never been done before and the [committee] had to be persuaded to implement this unprecedented procedure”.

She said activists had found 42 different government cuts that had breached the UN convention.

A coalition of UK disabled people’s organisations (DPOs), including DPAC, is now putting the finishing touches to a “shadow” report that shows how the UK government has responded to the 2016 recommendations, which they will submit to the committee.

Ellen Clifford, from DPAC and the coalition, told this week’s meeting: “They wanted to make sure that the UK government knew that our special inquiry hadn’t been forgotten about and that they are still keeping an eye on us.”

Representatives of some DPOs, including DPAC, are also likely to give evidence in person when the UK government is examined on its progress in Geneva on 28 August.

The coalition of UK DPOs is still looking for last minute evidence from disabled people with personal experience of breaches of rights in areas such as care charges, employment discrimination, benefit sanctions and the Access to Work scheme.

Their report has to be submitted to the UN committee by 1 August.

Last week, speaking at the TUC Disabled Workers Conference in Bournemouth, Clifford said: “We need to help the committee see behind the smoke and mirrors that the government tries to put up and give them a true picture of what’s happening.”

The coalition of UK DPOs includes DPAC, Inclusion Scotland, Disability Wales, Disability Action Northern Ireland, DPO Forum England, Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance, Disability Rights UK, and Inclusion London.

20 July 2023

DWP websites and IT systems still ‘high risk’ on accessibility, a year after secret reports

Key digital services used to run the disability benefits system are still being branded “high risk” on accessibility, a year after secret Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) reports found scores of its services were failing to comply with regulations.

DWP’s latest Digital Accessibility Compliance report, produced last month and obtained by Disability News Service (DNS), shows that less than half of its websites and other digital services (59 of 124) comply with public sector regulations on accessibility.

Once the report takes account of digital services that are due to be decommissioned, the figures are even worse, with only 59 of 150 compliant with the regulations.

Of these, 10 are seen as “very high” risk and another 28 described as “high risk”.

The report shows that – 14 months on from a previous report, also seen by DNS – there are still serious accessibility issues with two key digital services used to run the department’s personal independence payment (PIP) assessment system.

The PIP assessment tool (known as PIPAT) is still described in the latest report as “critical” and “high risk”.

PIPAT is used by DWP’s private sector assessment providers, Capita and Atos, to record all the information they need to know about disabled claimants for their assessments.

The PIP computer system – due to be replaced, but potentially not until 2025 – is also still described as “critical” and “high risk”.

Just as with the April 2022 report, DWP says this system has been “badged as high risk due to incidents with staff being unable to work due to the system not working for them”.

Among DWP websites seen as “very high risk” on accessibility are its Understanding Universal Credit, Become a Work Coach, and Job Help sites.

The report warns again – just as it did last year – that the accessibility problems with the work coach site could lead to a disability discrimination case being taken against the department under the Equality Act, as it is a recruitment website.

The Job Help website had previously been accessible but is now “non-compliant again” after being completely redesigned.

The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 came into force in September 2018, and Cabinet Office guidance warns that public sector bodies like DWP that do not ensure their websites or other digital services meet accessibility requirements “may be breaking the law”.

In its Freedom of Information Act response to DNS, the department said the report was “a snapshot in time” and there were “unknown pieces of information which makes it… inaccurate as a source of up-to-date compliance”.

A DWP spokesperson said this week: “We are prioritising our customer-facing digital services and replacing ageing IT systems to make our services accessible.

“But we know there is more to do and are improving services including upskilling our workforce and establishing a culture that prioritises accessibility across the Department.”

20 July 2023

Minister made ‘political’ decision to rule out safe evacuation for disabled people

The government made a secret political decision that it would be too expensive and impractical to ensure that disabled people can safely evacuate from high-rise blocks of flats in emergencies, the high court has concluded.

A minister decided not to make the decision public because it would be “politically difficult to justify” and he feared “political fallout”, the court has found.

But despite these findings, the high court has dismissed an application by disabled campaigners for a judicial review and has found that the government’s decision was not unlawful.

The case was taken by Sarah Rennie, Georgie Hulme, and CLADDAG, the organisation they founded to campaign for disabled leaseholders and tenants in residential buildings impacted by the building safety crisis.

They brought the case after the government rejected the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s recommendation that owners and managers of high-rise residential buildings should prepare a personal emergency evacuation plan (PEEP) for all residents who might find it difficult to “self-evacuate”.

The rejection of the PEEPs recommendation came even though those who responded to a consultation on the proposal overwhelmingly supported their introduction.

The Home Office consulted instead on its own “alternative package” of measures, which it calls Emergency Evacuation Information Sharing Plus, which does not go as far as PEEPs and will only apply to the minority of buildings that have been assessed as being “at higher risk”.

The high court has now found that fire minister Lord Greenhalgh had decided by September 2021 “not to implement the PEEPs recommendations”, but also concluded that it would be too dangerous politically to make that decision public.

Instead, ministers continued to insist that the PEEPs recommendation would be implemented.

Earlier this month, housing secretary Michael Gove said in a letter to London mayor Sadiq Khan that the PEEPs recommendations remained a “key priority”.

Hulme and Rennie, wheelchair-users who live in high- and medium-rise buildings, had asked the court last December to rule that the government’s rejection of PEEPs was unlawful.

Among their arguments was that the failure to introduce the PEEPs recommendations was a breach of disabled people’s right to life under the European Convention on Human Rights.

But the high court has now ruled in favour of the Home Office.

Mrs Justice Stacey said ministers were entitled to make a “political judgment” that the PEEPs recommendations should not be implemented, after balancing “risk and safety” against “practicability, deliverability, complexity and cost”.

She also said the home secretary had “established a framework of laws and guidance sufficient to satisfy a reasonable minimum protection of the right to life”.

And she found that the disability discrimination demonstrated by the failure to implement the PEEPs recommendation was justified in law, despite the government’s earlier public pledges that it would introduce the new measures.

Mrs Justice Stacey said it was “essentially a political decision for the defendant to take” and not unlawful.

Rennie and Hulme, who were represented by Bhatt Murphy solicitors and barrister Raj Desai, of Matrix Chambers, said: “The court’s judgment makes clearer than ever to us and our community that a political decision has been made by this government to leave disabled and older people living in high rise buildings without means of escape.

“It is a decision to prioritise money over disabled persons’ lives. And it is a decision not to learn the lessons of the disproportionate deaths of disabled persons in the Grenfell Tower fire as identified by the chair of the public inquiry.”

But they said the legal case had started a national conversation and led to a “significant shift in thinking” within the housing sector and fire safety industry.

This week, the Home Office refused to say if it now accepted that ministers would not implement PEEPs; that the decision not to implement PEEPs was a political decision; and that that decision showed ministers had prioritised money over disabled people’s lives.

But a government spokesperson said: “We are pleased with the court’s decision as it allows us to get on with delivering proposals that enhance the safety of residents whose ability to self-evacuate in an emergency may be compromised.

“We are currently analysing responses to our public consultation on Emergency Evacuation Information Sharing Plus, which is an alternative to Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans, to understand how best to achieve this.”

The Grenfell fire led to 72 people losing their lives, including 19 of Grenfell’s 46 disabled residents (41 per cent of them) who were present on the night of 14 June 2017, and 28 of the 157 residents with no impairments (18 per cent).

The subsequent inquiry found that, with every disabled resident who died, there had been no plan in place to help them evacuate, or to ensure their information was available for the fire and rescue service to help them evacuate.

20 July 2023

DWP makes tiny dent in Access to Work queue, 12 months on

Ministers have only made a tiny dent in the number of disabled people waiting for a decision on their Access to Work claim in the last year, new figures have revealed.

Unpublished figures released to Disability News Service (DNS) show there are still more than 23,000 disabled people waiting for their claim to be dealt with by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The queue has been cut by just 46 in 12 months, from 23,335 at the end of May 2022 to 23,289 at the end of May 2023.

The average waiting-time had even risen, from 49.1 days to 50.1 days, although DWP said this week that June’s figures showed it had now fallen to 41 days, having risen as high as 63 days last October.

The length of the queue had risen as high as 25,000 by the end of October 2022.

In May 2022, DWP blamed the lengthening AtW queue on the number of disabled people who were starting new jobs.

It claimed it was “working hard” to make sure applications were “progressed as soon as possible”, through recruiting new staff and introducing overtime working.

Tom Pursglove, the new minister for disabled people, delivered a similar defence last November, when he told Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary, Jon Ashworth, that there had been “a significant increase in applications over the last year” and that DWP had “recruited new staff to meet the increased demand and reduce the time it takes to make decisions”.

He also claimed the department was “transforming the Access to Work service through increased digitalisation, that will make the service more efficient, will make the application process easier, and improve the time taken from application through to decision”.

This week, DWP again blamed a significant increase in applications and again claimed it had recruited new staff to meet the increased demand and reduce the time it takes to make decisions.

A DWP spokesperson said: “We have hired extra staff and are testing a new digital claims system to make sure everyone entitled to Access to Work support receives timely help.

“Anyone starting work within four weeks is fast-tracked, while our improvements have seen processing times fall in the last year.”

The concerns over Access to Work inefficiency are long-standing.

A report commissioned by Inclusion London found in 2017 that the scheme was “a cornerstone of the movement for equality and civil rights for Deaf and disabled people in the UK” but had been “beset with so much bureaucratic incompetence and obstructionism in recent years that, in many respects, Access to Work is no longer fit for purpose”.

The new figures came as a report from the Commons work and pensions committee criticised the Access to Work scheme for being “highly bureaucratic in terms of the evidence and administration of paperwork required to apply for, renew or claim back costs”.

The committee’s report on the government’s employment programmes says the system is “outdated and often unable to accept online document submission or e-signatures”.

The committee concluded: “A system that requires applications and claims must be sent in by hand acts as a practical barrier to support.”

The report calls for DWP to update its Access to Work document submission process by the end of this year so all documentation can be submitted online.

20 July 2023

Wimbledon apologises after disabled tennis fan is forced to use service lift

A disabled tennis-lover and his wife were shocked to find they had to use a service lift used by staff to take out the rubbish when they wanted to access their sought-after seats on one of Wimbledon’s show courts.

Bob and Shawn Cozens, from Swindon, found out earlier this year that they had secured prized No 1 court seats in the Wimbledon ticket ballot, after 10 years of trying.

But when they arrived on the penultimate day of the tennis championships in south-west London last Saturday, they could find no-one able to direct them to the entrance for visitors with tickets for the wheelchair-accessible section of the stadium.

Their tickets had included no information on how to access their seats.

They spent three-quarters of an hour seeking directions from a string of members of staff being finally being told to enter through a staff entrance.

They were accompanied by a young member of staff and taken to a service lift, where they had to wait several minutes as it was being used to transport wheelie-bins full of rubbish.

They eventually made it into the lift and found their way to their seats, where they watched the first set of the men’s wheelchair doubles final, featuring Britain’s Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid.

But they said the experience ruined their enjoyment of a day they had been looking forward to for months.

Bob Cozens, who uses a mobility-scooter and has a communication impairment, told Disability News Service (DNS) that the access was “rubbish”.

His wife said: “The poor lad taking us to the lift was very apologetic. He said to us that a lot of people had complained.

“We had waited 10 years for tickets. It’s an international venue and it’s putting disabled people in a service lift.

“This is not what you would expect. We were shocked.”

She said they were highlighting the issue “so that the problem is sorted out for next year’s disabled guests because it is a wonderful experience that disabled people can and should enjoy”.

No 1 court only has 40 spaces for wheelchair-users out of a capacity of 12,345, a proportion of just over 0.3 per cent.

A spokesperson for the All England Lawn Tennis Club said they had apologised to Bob and Shawn Cozens after learning of their experience through DNS.

She said their seats should not have required a lift to access “so it is very disappointing to hear that they did not receive clear direction when trying to make their way there.

“We will endeavour to find out more information about who they spoke to, but regardless, it is clear that we will need to enhance our briefings and signage ahead of next year.

“We are very committed to trying to improve our accessibility services for guests every year.

“We have a dedicated accessibility team based at the south-west corner of centre court who are available to answer questions and provide any support our guests might need.

“We also offer a pre-booking service for those who wish to arrange additional support for when they arrive at the grounds.”

She said the club would be “making the appropriate improvements ahead of next year’s championships”.

20 July 2023

Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week

The wife and care worker of a disabled man have been jailed for 11 years for enslaving him while they had an affair, in a case believed to be the first of its kind in the UK. Tom Somerset-How was “treated like property” by Sarah Somerset-How, 49, and George Webb, 50, who were having trysts behind his back. Webb and Sarah Somerset-How have both been jailed for 11 years: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/cheating-wife-carer-who-kept-30465316

Heathrow Airport failed to meet the minimum accessibility standards for disabled passengers in the year to March, the sector’s regulator has said. The airport was the only one in the UK to be rated as “poor” and “needs improvement” by the Civil Aviation Authority over all four quarters in the period, according to the report. For the 12 months covered, 18 airports received good or very good ratings and seven airports improved from poor to good. Heathrow was an outlier, however, not having met the criteria for a good rating over the period: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/20/heathrow-failed-to-meet-minimum-accessibility-standards-caa-report-finds

Plans to cut school transport for some children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) will go to consultation. Shropshire Council says the cuts will save £350,000 annually and the authority’s cabinet has agreed the proposals should be considered. Tory council leader Lezley Picton said cuts were not an easy decision, but leader of the opposition Labour group Julia Buckley said the plan was an “absolute disgrace”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-66254080

20 July 2023

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

We are currently producing our report for the UN Disability Committee which has to be sent by July 27^th and are looking for case studies to send which can be anonymised.

Please email us details -:

1. if you have had problems recruiting PAs since 2020.
2. if you have had to give up having social care because you cannot afford to pay for it and also has the amount you have to pay increased.
3. If you have been told that if you need overnight care you will have to move into a care home.
4. If you have experienced problems getting medication or medical equipment since leaving the EU.
5. If you feel you have been discriminated against in your employment due to your disabilities.
6. Problems with getting Access to Work funding.
7. Have you had a recent sanction?
8. Are you struggling with the cost of living
9. Have you been abused in an ATU or secure hospital setting.

mail@dpac.uk.net

with the heading UN information

We have also been asked by Human Rights Watch, an International Human Rights monitoring organisation, to find people they could interview when they come to the UK in August or September about residential care settings and how people have ended up in them, been able to leave them etc. They would also like to speak to people who may have been told if they need overnight care they have to move into a care home or who have been left without overnight care instead.

Although they would want to speak to people you could be anonymous in their reports.

If you can help with this please also email us at mail@dpac.uk.net

Ticket office closures will cut support for disabled rail passengers, papers show

A government-backed programme to close most ticket offices across the country will lead to a significant fall in the number of staff available to support disabled passengers, analysis of consultation documents has shown.

Several of the documents published last week by train companies make it impossible to assess the impact of the closure programme on staffing levels at rail stations.

But analysis by Disability News Service (DNS) shows those companies that have released enough information to allow passengers to assess the impact of the proposed closures show clear cuts to support across many of the hundreds of stations affected – mostly in England – despite repeated pledges by government and the rail industry.

One company, West Midlands Railway (WMR), is set to close a number of ticket offices and replace them with assistance from “mobile teams” covering a group of local stations.

This will mean there will be no permanent staff presence for passenger assistance at these stations.

This will cover stations such as Longbridge, Bournville, Bromsgrove and the tourism centre of Stratford-upon-Avon, which all currently have ticket offices that are open at least 11 hours a day during the week.

WMR refused this week to justify the move to shut these ticket offices and replace them with assistance from mobile teams.

Instead, a spokesperson claimed the company was “committed to providing an accessible railway for all” and that “moving staff out from behind windows and onto concourses and platforms will enable them to provide support and assistance to passengers in a way that they currently cannot”.

Some of the stations run by East Midlands Railway will see ticket offices that are currently open for up to 11 hours a day during the week shut down and replaced by daily or even weekly visits from members of a mobile team covering a group of local stations.

Great Western Railway (GWR) plans to cut staffing hours by more than two hours a day during the week at Bristol Temple Meads, the city’s main station.

At GWR’s main station in Reading, where nearly a quarter of all tickets in 2022-23 were sold at the ticket office, the company plans to close that ticket office and cut the availability of staff by nearly three hours a day on weekdays.

Avanti West Coast’s consultation document shows that “ticketing support” at London Euston will end at 10pm on weekdays, rather than midnight at present, once the ticket office has closed.

At Manchester Piccadilly, ticketing support will end at 9pm rather than 10.30pm, every day of the week, while also starting later each day.

All but 18 ticket offices at stations run by Northern will see their ticket offices closed.

Disabled activist Doug Paulley said his calculations show Northern’s staffed station hours will decrease by three-fifths under its proposals, from 10,793 to 4,238 hours per week, with nearly all the cuts at weekends and evenings.

Staff support at many Northern stations, including Ulverston and Hexham, will be drastically cut when the ticket offices close, in Ulverston’s case from more than eight hours a day on weekdays to just two, with an end to any support on Sundays when it was previously available for more than nine hours.

Staff support at these two stations is particularly important for many disabled people because they include “barrow crossings”, crossing-points that allow passengers who cannot use steps to cross the tracks to move from one platform to another with the support of staff. 

Tony Jennings, a mobility scooter-user whose local station is Ulverston, said it would become “token staffing” at the station if the changes went ahead, and it would “essentially become inaccessible”.

He said there would be “virtually no opportunity” for spontaneous travel (“turn up and go”) for disabled people from their local station under the plans. 

He believes Northern will be failing to comply with its accessible travel policy (ATPs) under its proposals, which the Office of Rail and Road is examining this month along with those of all the other train companies proposing ticket office closures.

He said: “Wheelchair- and mobility scooter-users are dependent on staff to escort them across the barrow crossing.

“The station will become inaccessible if the proposed hours are reduced and the nearest accessible station is 10 miles away and wheelchair-accessible taxis are virtually non-existent so disabled people will be excluded from travelling on Northern trains. 

“Be under no illusion, closing ticket offices is about cutting staff, and disabled people will suffer the consequences.”

Jennings, a member of Northern’s accessibility panel, said later that he had been told by the company that it was prioritising mitigation for the closures.

A Northern spokesperson said: “These are proposals at this point and we welcome feedback from users of the station.”

Northern is among companies that are defending the closure proposals, arguing that only one in six journeys on its services are purchased through a ticket office and that it needs to “modernise to meet the changing needs” of passengers.

The Northern spokesperson said: “These proposals include the creation of a new, more visible customer facing role that will offer a wider range of support across our stations.”

Another company, Southeastern, which wants to close many of its ticket offices in south-east London, has admitted that, when it closes ticket offices at “medium and larger sized” locations, those stations “will have fewer staff”.

TransPennine Express will be closing 14 of its 16 ticket offices, with station staffing reducing at the majority of those 14 stations.

Limehouse station in east London, run by rail company C2C, currently has a ticket station open more than six hours a day on weekdays, but the provision of ticketing advice at the station will drop to zero after it closes.

Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), which runs Southern, Gatwick Express, Thameslink and Great Northern, refused to explain how its programme of closures would affect overall staffing numbers at its stations.

DNS asked GTR how passengers could assess the impact of the closures without the necessary information in its consultation documents – when online reports suggest there will be more than 260 fewer staff under its plans – but it refused to answer the question.

Instead, Jenny Saunders, its customer service director, claimed the closures were a “real opportunity to modernise and improve the experience of our customers” and that “no station that is staffed today would become unstaffed and we would continue to provide accessibility support and assistance”.

Chiltern – which reports suggest will lose 19 staff due to the planned closures – also refused to explain how passengers could assess the impact of the closures without the necessary information in its consultation document.

A Chiltern* spokesperson claimed instead that “Chiltern colleagues will be available to help customers at similar, if not the same times, as they currently do today with ticketing and accessibility queries in all of our staffed stations” and that “the proposed change amounts to moving colleagues from behind the glass as opposed to any reduction in provision of ticketing or accessibility services – including hours of operation”.

There are also growing concerns at the failure of the train companies to provide their consultation documents in accessible formats such as easy read, British Sign Language and large print, in addition to a consultation process that will only last three weeks.

The government has claimed that the “industry-led consultations are about enhancing the role of station workers and getting staff out from behind ticket office screens and into more active, customer-facing roles that will allow them to better support all passengers”.

But Katie Pennick, campaigns manager for Transport for All (TfA), said: “The line coming from government and industry is that staffing levels will remain broadly the same, but there’s a reason we are so sceptical about this argument.

“We know these plans are ultimately about cutting costs, which tells us staff will be reduced.

“The process of closing ticket offices requires public consultation – but if/when they close, there’s absolutely nothing stopping train operating companies from de-staffing entirely.

“This could result in train operators destaffing stations by stealth.

“Moreover, upon closer analysis of the proposals, it seems staffing levels are indeed set to reduce, with some operators proposing replacing assistance staff with ‘mobile teams’ covering a number of local stations. This is unacceptable.

“It is difficult enough for disabled people to get staff’s attention and arrange assistance currently, even when staff are located at the ticket office/assistance point.

“Imagine how much more difficult this will be if staff are ‘roaming’ and could be anywhere in the station or on any platform, or indeed at another station entirely?

“Disabled people should not be (and are not) required to book assistance in advance.

“The proposals must be scrapped.”

To respond to the consultations launched by individual train companies, passengers should contact the independent transport user watchdog Transport Focus, or London TravelWatch in London. The consultation period lasts just 21 days (until 26 July).

TfA has advice on how to write a letter of objection to the consultations.

*The other train companies consulting on ticket office closures are Greater Anglia, LNER and South Western

13 July 2023

Minister misleads MPs over impact of ticket office closures

The rail minister has refused to apologise after misleading MPs about the impact of government-backed plans to close hundreds of ticket offices.

Huw Merriman twice told the Commons last week that “no currently staffed stations will be unstaffed” as a result of the closures, which are focused on England.

But public consultation documents issued by all 13 train companies planning closures show that is not true.

Analysis by Disability News Service of the consultation documents (see separate story) shows that at least three train companies will move some stations from being staffed part-time to relying on mobile teams that cover a group of local stations.

Disabled activist Doug Paulley said comments that the closures were simply about redeploying staff – made by Merriman and the rail industry – were “just so disingenuous”.

He said: “They say it’s about being more customer-focused. No, it’s not.”

He said this week that legal action over the closures was increasingly likely.

Paulley’s own calculations show Northern’s staffed station hours will decrease by three-fifths under its proposals, from 10,793 to 4,238 staffed station hours per week, with nearly all the cuts at weekends and evenings.

Some stations run by East Midlands Railway will in future have to rely on “mobile staff” when their ticket offices close.

Alfreton currently has a ticket office open more than eight hours a day every day of the week, but in future it will have to rely on “daily visits from mobile staff”.

Two other East Midlands stations, Mansfield and Narborough, currently have ticket offices open six days a week for more than six hours a day, but in future will have to rely on “weekly visits from mobile staff”. 

Closures to ticket offices in stations run by Greater Anglia will see similar changes to some stations, with Braintree and Rochford currently having a ticket office open one day a week, but both in future having to rely on “regular visits by our mobile team”.

And some stations run by West Midlands Railway – including Bournville, Longbridge and Stratford-upon-Avon – will move from having ticket offices open at least 11 hours a day during the week to relying in future on staff from its “new mobile teams” being deployed “on a flexible basis to undertake customer service, passenger assistance, safety and general upkeep duties”.

A Department for Transport spokesperson refused to comment on the minister misleading MPs about the closures.

Instead, he claimed the “industry-led consultations are about enhancing the role of station workers and getting staff out from behind ticket office screens and into more active, customer-facing roles that will allow them to better support all passengers”.

He also claimed that DfT had been “consistently honest” about “the need for our railways to modernise if they are going to survive”.

To respond to the consultations launched by individual train companies, passengers should contact the independent transport user watchdog Transport Focus, or London TravelWatch in London. The consultation period lasts just 21 days (until 26 July).

13 July 2023

Telegraph articles ‘legitimise’ hate speech, disabled activists tell TUC conference

Union activists have called for action over discriminatory articles in a national newspaper that “legitimise” hate speech by attacking disabled benefit claimants.

Disabled journalists – backed overwhelmingly by fellow union activists – called this week for the press regulator to strengthen its code of practice, following news stories published by the Daily Telegraph.

They said the “distorted narratives” contained in the Telegraph articles legitimise disability hate speech and “demonise” disabled people who are unable to work.

The emergency motion submitted by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ)* to the TUC Disabled Workers Conference in Bournemouth yesterday (Wednesday) called on the TUC to support a campaign that demands action by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO).

IPSO is supposed to regulate the Telegraph but it has made it clear that it cannot investigate such news stories because they attack a group of people rather than named individuals, despite receiving more than 600 complaints about one of the Telegraph stories.

But Natasha Hirst, the first disabled activist to become NUJ president, said this leaves disabled people “open to being targeted”.

She told the conference that the kind of narratives contained in the Telegraph articles “legitimise hate speech”.

In May, Jeremy Vine’s Channel 5 television show published a social media post that asked if it was wrong for “taxpayers” to pay “indefinitely” for the benefits of those “deemed too sick to work”.

Last month, the Telegraph sparked hundreds of complaints to IPSO over a “toxic” article which asked its readers to calculate how much disabled people on out-of-work benefits were contributing to the country’s “tax burden”, and claiming that millions were claiming benefits “without ever having to look for work”.

It produced an automatic calculator that allowed readers to discover “just how much of our hard-won salaries are spent on the benefits of those who do not work”.

Last week, the Telegraph ran another news story (paywall) that accused the government of “wasting taxpayers’ money” on a “profligate” benefits system by funding people with mental distress to “claim £40,000 cars on benefits” through the Motability scheme.

Hirst told fellow delegates: “This sort of reporting is a dog whistle for the far-right.

“It is too easy for the owners of corporations like the Telegraph to get away with unethical journalism because we have a regulator [IPSO] that cannot grasp and doesn’t care how damaging this kind of reporting is.”

She warned of the lessons from history that show the consequences of the dehumanisation of disabled people, with the Aktion T4 programme in Nazi Germany leading to the systematic murder of at least a quarter of a million disabled people.

Hirst said: “We must remember our history.

“The drip-drip-drip of inhumane and degrading rhetoric meant it was acceptable for disabled lives to be extinguished, lives like yours and mine.”

Nicky Fitzsimmons, from USDAW, seconding the NUJ motion, told delegates: “We know from bitter experience that the portrayal of benefit claimants as scroungers, as lazy and workshy has very real and damaging consequences for disabled people.”

She said the articles were designed to portray disabled people as a group apart and “something other, a group that doesn’t pay its way and one that is getting away with something for nothing”.

She said that a member of her delegation, who is visually-impaired and uses a white cane, had recently thanked someone for holding a hotel door open for them in Blackpool, only for that person to hurl abuse at her, saying she was only using the cane to get personal independence payment (PIP), even though she does not currently receive PIP.

Hannah David, from the PCS union, read out a comment from a member who works for the Department for Work and Pensions.

They said the government and right-wing press “continue to feed the narrative” of disabled people “languishing” at home and living off the state, to try to push sick and disabled people off benefits and into “inappropriate low-paid work”.

They added: “Language is important and it’s important that we work to change this rhetoric, both from government and the press.”

Dan Edge, from Equity, who works in the arts, theatre, cinema and television, said he had spent years working to develop “positive narratives around disability” and that he was tired of seeing his work “undone” by articles such as those in the Telegraph.

He said the press “needs to be held to account”.

Paulette Ennever, from NASUWT, said such demonisation of disabled benefit claimants had “plagued our society for too long”, with the media portraying disabled people as “burdens on society”.

The motion was unanimously passed by delegates.

Earlier, the TUC’s general secretary, Paul Nowak, told the conference that media organisations like the Telegraph were “very clear that the problem isn’t the systemic barriers that you face, it’s that disabled people are scroungers leaching off the taxes of the so-called strivers.

“That’s utter tosh. It’s utter bullshit. It’s an insult to disabled people, it’s an insult to tax-payers, and it’s an insult to journalists.”

He praised the NUJ for exposing the Telegraph’s “nasty, inaccurate, right-wing drivel”.  

The NUJ wants the IPSO code of practice to be extended to allow complaints to be made about discrimination against groups of people.

It also wants IPSO to use its powers to monitor coverage of disability issues in national newspapers so it can act against “systemic negative framing” of disabled people.

And it wants IPSO to work with the NUJ and disabled people’s organisations to produce guidelines on disability reporting.

*DNS editor John Pring is an NUJ member

13 July 2023

Disabled people in Wales ‘systematically’ let down during cost-of-living crisis

Disabled people in Wales have been “systematically” let down by the UK and Welsh governments during the “devastating” cost-of-living crisis, a new report has found.

The Barely Surviving report, launched this week by Disability Wales, says many disabled people in Wales have been caused “significant harm” by the cost-of-living crisis, with “insufficient” measures taken by government.

The report warns of evidence suggesting that disabled people were “slipping through the cracks and struggling on their own” because of a lack of “joined up support” between the NHS, local authorities and the Welsh government. 

It says this must become a “national priority” for the Welsh Senedd.

Disability Wales said the UK and Welsh governments “must act urgently and meaningfully” in response to the “harrowing lived experiences of disabled people” exposed by the research.

The report warns of an “ongoing crisis” in disabled people’s mental health, which is not being addressed.

Multiple respondents to a survey for the report said they had experienced suicidal ideation, with one reporting that a disabled friend had taken their own life “after feeling like a financial burden on their family”.

One respondent reported worsening asthma and anxiety attacks because they were not able to keep their home heated.

Of the 74 survey respondents, 52 said their physical health had been impacted by the cost-of-living crisis, while 58 respondents said their mental health had been affected.

The report says many disabled people are unable to afford three meals a day or pay for the impairment-related diets they need. 

Others are experiencing increasing levels of social isolation because of the lack of access to transport.

About 100 disabled people, as well as disabled people’s organisations, contributed to the research by Disability Wales.

One disabled person who took part in the research said: “What’s worse is not knowing what to expect next, how much more costs will increase.”

Some respondents reported having to sell possessions to pay their bills.

Of those who took part in the survey, 53 of 74 respondents said they had had to cut back on their spending on transport, which left many “increasingly isolated”.

A similar number said they had cut back on their spending on food, with even more having to cut back on clothing and leisure.

Among the report’s recommendations is a call for personal independence payment to be devolved to the Welsh government – as it has been in Scotland, which has designed its own replacement benefit – which would allow a “coproduced approach to the design and assessment process in line with the social model of disability”.

It also calls for regulators such as Ofgem and Ofcom to “make sure that disabled people don’t overpay for everyday essential services”, and for an urgent review of the Welsh government’s policy on social care charges.

And it calls for resources and capacity-building measures to ensure the creation and sustainability of at least one disabled people’s organisation in every local authority area in Wales.

Rhian Davies, chief executive of Disability Wales, told an online event held to launch the report: “Although there has been a lot of universal support with payments for energy bills and that sort of thing, there’s been very little targeted at disabled people, despite the fact that disabled people face higher costs in terms of… disability-related expenditure.

“Also, disabled people are more likely to live in poverty. That combination of factors we feel is being completely overlooked by the UK and… Welsh governments.

“The report is an important way for us to highlight that and use as a springboard to work with governments and other stakeholders to get these issues addressed.”

She said the Welsh government must use its Disability Rights Taskforce* and Disability Rights Action Plan – due for publication next year – to “make a radical change”.

She said: “I think we are all a bit tired of having promises made and then things not following through.”

*The taskforce was set up to address the inequalities exposed by the Locked Out report into the impact of the pandemic on disabled people in Wales

13 July 2023

Union key workers demand urgent action on rights for those with long Covid

Teachers, train drivers and other union activists have called for urgent action to secure the rights of disabled workers with long Covid.

Among their demands, they are calling for statutory recognition of long Covid to ensure disabled employees are protected under the Equality Act.

Other demands, backed overwhelmingly by this week’s TUC Disabled Workers Conference in Bournemouth, include a call to reform the Access to Work scheme to make it easier for disabled workers to work from home.

They also want to see a new right to a phased return to work for those with long Covid. 

Kim Knappett, from the National Education Union (NEU), said education workers had been disproportionately exposed to Covid during the pandemic because they were seen as key workers.

She said: “The consequence of this is that we have a large number of members with a whole range of after-effects of their infection.

“The NEU, like many other unions, are struggling to get employers to admit that often the infection was caused during their employment.

“This often leads to financial issues for those members as they reach the limit of their paid sick leave and are forced into even greater poverty.

“We do need to stand together to strengthen the campaign for statutory recognition of long Covid as a disability and to get better treatment for those who were failed by the government during and post the pandemic.”

Pat Roche, from the University and College Union (UCU), told delegates that classrooms “are probably one of the most dangerous places in the world in a Covid pandemic”.

She highlighted the death of “inspirational” teacher Donna Coleman, a longstanding UCU member, who worked at Burnley College and died in January 2021 after contracting Covid. 

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive found the college had broken health and safety laws because of its failure to protect staff from the virus.

Coleman had been working at the college and before her death UCU had rejected the college’s risk assessments in her working area because of inadequate Covid controls.

Philip Blundell, from Unite, a long Covid survivor, moved a motion – passed almost unanimously – that recognised the extent of long Covid and called for action to support workers with the condition.

He said he believed the impact of long Covid would “hit us like a train” over the next couple of years.

He told fellow delegates: “When I talked to my line manager one day about long Covid, I was told that I was very lucky and I was told not to rock the boat because I was a high-functioning disabled person and I was lucky to still be in a job, so be careful and don’t rock the boat.

“Well, members of this conference, I am going to rock this boat and I ask everybody to join me.”

Ciorstaidh Reichle, from GMB, reminded the conference that six out of 10 deaths during the pandemic had been of disabled people.

She said: “We should be looking at ways to promote a safe working environment, especially for workers at higher risk, shielding being one of the optimum protections. 

“The safest option would be to work from home.

“We call on the TUC to support reform of the Access to Work fund to make it financially manageable for disabled workers to work from home.”

She also called for the promotion of flexible working for disabled workers.

Ian Penovich, an ASLEF train driver, said members of his union and others “kept the country moving” at the height of the pandemic, so that other workers could do their vital jobs.

He said: “In the face of a national and global crisis, our unions did what we were best at, we pulled together and organised and did what needed to be done, for many of us putting ourselves at great personal risk.

“Now there are many among us who are suffering from long Covid as a result, and they deserve to be looked after in the same way that they looked after the country.”

Cecily Blyther, from the University and College Union, said: “During the pandemic, we learnt a great deal more about… working from home, cleanliness, hygiene, hybrid working and a great variety of working conditions.

“It should now be more possible than ever to enable everyone to do their job by setting up appropriate reasonable adjustments.”

A second motion, proposed by the NASUWT, and passed unanimously, raised concerns that the legacy of the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic had “left disabled workers more exposed to discrimination and unfair employer practices, including through the misuse of sickness absence and capability procedures, and with reduced access to jobs, promotion and career development”.  

The union also warned that the high rate of long COVID among them was “driving teachers out of the profession”. 

It called on the TUC to strengthen the campaign for statutory recognition of long Covid within the definition of disability in the Equality Act and to hold the government to account for its failure to protect disabled workers during the pandemic.

Kathryn Downs, from the NASUWT, said the government and employers “hung disabled workers out to dry” during the pandemic.

She said: “Those who were shielding found themselves isolated and others who were classed as key workers under the loosest of terms found themselves having to choose between employment or their health.

“Some were furloughed, and others lost their employment altogether… as teachers we were OK apparently. We were told we were not at risk if schools were open.”

She only received her shielding letter halfway through the second lockdown.  

NASUWT figures show the education sector has had the highest rate of long Covid.

The union has been campaigning for statutory recognition of long Covid as a disability under the Equality Act, which would provide workers with statutory protection such as the right to reasonable adjustments and protection against discrimination.

It has also been challenging employers to ensure teachers with long Covid are supported and not treated unfairly, by ensuring they have access to decent sickness absence provision, and reasonable adjustments including the right to time off, extended phased returns and access to flexible working.

Downs said many teachers had been forced to leave their classroom jobs because of the failure of such support.

She pointed to Office for National Statistics figures which found six in 10 Covid-related deaths were of disabled people.

But she said: “There was very little concern about holding the government and employers to account for the actions which put our lives at a lower cost to other workers.”

NASUWT evidence has shown an increase in disability hate crime in the classroom, with almost three-fifths of disabled members reporting disablist attitudes had worsened in the last year.

Paul Nowak, the TUC’s general secretary, told the conference yesterday (Wednesday) that the TUC had published ground-breaking research into long Covid which found that one in seven workers with long Covid said they had lost their jobs for reasons linked to the condition.

He said the TUC was campaigning for long Covid to be treated as a disability under the Equality Act.

He said TUC research had shown “that it was cuts to public services, it was austerity, that left us woefully unprepared when the virus struck”.

And he said austerity had killed “hundreds of thousands” of people, regardless of claims made by former Tory cabinet ministers George Osborne and Matt Hancock, and former prime minister David Cameron.

13 July 2023

Disabled activists set to fight on in strategy court battle, despite appeal defeat

Activists are set to fight on in the battle to force the government to listen to disabled people in drawing up a proper national disability strategy, despite the government winning its appeal in a long-running court case.

The Court of Appeal ruled this week that the government’s National Disability Strategy was not unlawful, over-turning last year’s ruling by the high court.

The high court had found that ministers carried out an unlawful consultation – through a national survey – before the strategy’s publication.

The appeal centred on whether the UK Disability Survey, which the government carried out early in 2021, was intended to be a consultation on a national strategy and whether it was an unlawful one.

The government argued that the survey was just an information-gathering exercise, not a consultation, and therefore it did not need to provide the information needed for disabled people to respond to it in a meaningful way.

Despite that claim, the Disability Unit’s own website had listed the survey as an “Open Consultation”, while it was hosted on the unit’s “Consultation Hub”, with the promise that responses would inform the strategy’s development.

But the Court of Appeal has now ruled that the survey was not unlawful because it was not a consultation that was subject to certain legal principles – known as the Gunning criteria.

Lady Justice Elisabeth Laing, one of the three Court of Appeal judges who heard the appeal, said in this week’s ruling that the strategy “had not reached a stage at which it could conceivably have been the subject of a ‘consultation’ complying with the Gunning criteria”. 

She said the purpose of the survey “was not to enable respondents to respond to proposals (there were none) but to give the respondents to the Survey the opportunity to influence the future content of the Strategy with information and their views”.

Disabled campaigners who took the case now hope to secure permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Because of the high court ruling, ministers had been forced to sideline much of their discredited strategy – criticised at the time of its publication in July 2021 by disabled people’s organisations as “tokenistic”, “rehashed” and “not fit for purpose”.

They are now set to publish a new “disability action plan” in the next few weeks, which will sit alongside the strategy.

Doug Paulley, one of the claimants, told Disability News Service that he believed the appeal court’s ruling was wrong and “ridiculous”, when the government had itself described it as an “open consultation”.

But he also said it was “sad” that the serious problems with the National Disability Strategy and the survey had now been relegated to arguments about a “technicality”.

He said the National Disability Strategy and the consultation had been “a travesty”.

He said: “It comes down to a technicality, whether something is a consultation or just an information-gathering exercise.

“It is 18 months of fighting in court, all the money and energy on both sides, with the government fighting it when it was transparent that the whole thing was unfair… and then they win on a technicality.”

Asked for his message to the government, Paulley said: “They should deal with the core issue, which is that they should genuinely consult and involve and co-produce with disabled people and produce a National Disability Strategy that is fit for purpose and will make a positive difference to disabled people’s lives.”

Kamran Mallick, chief executive of Disability Rights UK, said: “Whilst the court ruling is surprising, as the disability survey was not an appropriate consultation, the government should now act to take significant and meaningful action to address the poverty and systemic inequalities faced by millions of disabled people.

“We definitely don’t need both a National Disability Strategy and a Disability Action Plan.

“We need a single ambitious and transformational plan to make society inclusive and put in place the incomes and support disabled people need to be equal citizens.” 

Tom Pursglove, the minister for disabled people, welcomed the ruling in a written statement and said it meant both the UK Disability Survey and the National Disability Strategy had now been found to be lawful.

He said ministers now “need to take stock of what this decision means for individual National Disability Strategy commitments and evaluate how best to move forward”.

He said he would update parliament in September to “set out our next steps in more detail”.

He added: “The Government will also continue to move forward with our planned consultation on the Disability Action Plan over the summer.

“The Disability Action Plan and the National Disability Strategy were always intended to be complementary, with the former focusing on concrete, short-term actions deliverable in 2023/24 to improve disabled people’s lives, and the latter setting out our longer-term vision, and I am delighted that we are now able to make progress on both of them.”

13 July 2023

Disabled union activists vow to fight ticket office closures

Disabled union activists have pledged to fight the closure of hundreds of rail ticket offices, with just two weeks left for passengers to respond to a series of consultations.

An emergency motion opposing the closures – proposed by the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union – drew overwhelming support from disabled delegates at the TUC Disabled Workers Conference in Bournemouth this week, and was passed unanimously.

It was the first in-person Disabled Workers Conference since the start of the pandemic in 2020.

Delegates lined up to attack the proposed closures of nearly 1,000 ticket offices, announced last week by train companies, and to highlight the impact that would have on disabled passengers.

Natalie Amber, an Equity delegate, pointed to the impact of the closures on disabled freelance workers, including many Equity members, who rely on rail travel to “go from job to job”.

She told delegates that she had to rely on a train driver to help her off the train on the way to the conference because of a failure of booked assistance, and then needed to have her ticket validated in a ticket office so she did not have to buy a new ticket.

She said: “It is this kind of thing that will stop people from being able to take work [if ticket offices close].”

Amber said that many people needed to be able to speak to someone in a ticket office because ticket machines are not accessible to them.

She said her industry and union would lose “extremely talented people” because of the closures.

Kathryn Downs, from the NASUWT teachers’ union, a wheelchair-user, told the conference: “I cannot believe we are here with another battle for our access needs.”

She said many of the ticket machines at her local station were not accessible to wheelchair-users.

Like Amber, she highlighted how ticket offices can help disabled passengers who have been delayed by a failure of assistance.

She said: “It’s the ticket office that ensures we can… validate our ticket to make sure we can get to our destination.”

Downs said she relied on ticket offices for support as a neurodivergent person because of the barriers she experiences, and that she would not have capacity to search the station for a member of staff to support her.

She said: “I do not trust rail bosses when they say [there will be] no cuts to staffing.”

Graeme Ellis, another wheelchair-user and a UNISON delegate, said the closures would have an impact “in our work lives and our social lives”.

He said ticket machines were not accessible to him, and he added: “We are going to be severely impacted by the withdrawal of ticket offices.”

Ellis warned that many disabled ticket office workers were likely to lose their jobs in the closure programme because new positions in which they would have to roam around the station would not be accessible to them.

Kevin Daws, from the University and College Union, said many tickets sold in ticket offices are sold to disabled people who have no other way to buy them.

He told delegates: “When we are at these stations, many of us need a lot of support and advice and that will not be there if all these ticket offices are not there.”

Proposing a motion on accessible public transport, which was also passed unanimously, Nigel Braithwaite, from the Musicians’ Union, praised RMT ticket office staff at Birmingham New Street station who enabled him to find the right train to the conference after his initial train was cancelled.

He said: “The closure of the ticket offices… is the latest escalation in the attack on public transport.

“It’s the latest move to make rail travel less safe and less accessible, while shareholders line their pockets.

“The closure of ticket offices is not about modernisation, it is a euphemism for ruthless cuts.”

Paul Miles, from the train drivers’ union ASLEF, said the closures would have “devastating consequences for jobs and accessibility”.

He said: “We know these closures will be used as an opportunity to reduce staffing levels.”

He said his union believed the closures would “impact heavily” on the ability of disabled passengers to “turn up and go” without booking assistance in advance, and that the closures would breach companies’ accessible travel policies.

Speaking at a packed fringe meeting organised by the RMT transport union on Tuesday, RMT’s equal opportunities officer Jess Webb told activists to “mobilise everyone in your union” against the closures.

GMB delegate Dawn Lovatt described how a member of ticket office staff had printed out an alternative route for her to get to Bournemouth for the conference.

She said: “I wouldn’t have got here without it. Computers can’t replace people.”

Andrew Coley, from USDAW, said he uses ticket offices to find the easiest routes to take to a destination with the least inconvenience.

Tracy Cannard, also from USDAW, said the closures were a “health and safety issue”.

She described how she arrived on a train in Warrington in the early evening, and there were no staff at the station, even though she had booked assistance on the passenger assistance app.

She had to be helped off by a fellow passenger, and when she arrived at the taxi rank, she was threatened by a man with a knife.

But because of a lack of staff there was no-one at the station from whom she could seek help, which meant she was unable to shelter in the ticket office.

She said: “I wouldn’t be able to travel without them.”

RMT delegate Christine Willett, who chaired the fringe meeting, said: “A railway is a part of the community and we have seen so much taken away from local communities that has destroyed them.

“We have to fight for everything now.”

To respond to the consultations launched by individual train companies, passengers should contact the independent transport user watchdog Transport Focus, or London TravelWatch in London. The consultation period lasts just 21 days (until 26 July).

13 July 2023

Unions call for government action on ‘criminal’ disability pay gap

Unions have called for government action to address the “absolutely criminal” pay gap between disabled and non-disabled employees.

New TUC figures were released this week ahead of the first in-person TUC Disabled Workers Conference since the start of the pandemic.

Dave Allan, co-chair of the TUC disabled workers’ committee, told the conference in Bournemouth that the figures showed a 17.2 per cent gap between how much disabled and non-disabled people earn in a year – which was £3,700 less a year, or £2.05 less an hour – which he said was “absolutely criminal”.

Disabled women earn more than £7,000 a year less than non-disabled men.

Allan said: “It is time for employers to be forced to do better. They must face a legal duty to publish their disability pay gap.

“They must face fines for failure to implement reasonable adjustments.

“This Tory government has failed us time and time again. They have shown us that they have no respect for the lives of disabled people.

“We have more to do than ever to fight for justice for disabled people.”

About seven in 10 (69 per cent) disabled employees earn less than £15 an hour, according to the figures.

The TUC analysis finds that disabled people are much more likely than non-disabled peers to be paid less than £15 per hour, with half of non-disabled employees (50 per cent) earning less than £15 per hour, compared to seven in 10 (69 per cent) disabled employees.

In some parts of the country, the figures are even worse.

In the north-east (92 per cent) and Wales (94 per cent), more than nine in 10 disabled employees earn less than £15 an hour, compared to around two in five non-disabled workers (37 per cent in the north-east and 42 per cent in Wales).

The TUC has called on ministers to introduce a legal requirement for employers to report regularly on their disability pay gaps, and fines for employers that fail to deliver disabled workers’ legal right to reasonable adjustments.

Paul Nowak, the TUC’s general secretary, told the conference yesterday (Wednesday): “As trade unionists, we are clear that fighting for disability equality cannot be left to disabled workers alone.

“It’s the responsibility of all of us in the trade union movement.”

He said earlier in the week: “Disabled workers are struggling to make ends meet in this cost-of-living crisis, with rocketing bills and soaring inflation.

“Every worker deserves a decent job on decent pay. Being disabled should not mean you’re paid any less or are stuck on worse terms and conditions.

“The government has done very little so far to support disabled workers.

“It’s time for ministers to increase the minimum wage to £15 per hour as soon as possible and put an end to insecure work by banning zero hours contracts.

“And they must also introduce mandatory disability pay gap reporting to shine a light on inequality at work.

“Without this, millions of disabled people face a future of lower pay and in-work poverty.”

13 July 2023

Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week

The government has widened its use of artificial intelligence (AI) to uncover welfare fraud, despite warnings of algorithmic bias against groups of vulnerable claimants. In a £70 million investment applying “advanced analytics” to requests for universal credit, the Department for Work and Pensions has extended the use of machine learning as it attempts to save more than £1 billion from the £8 billion-plus lost to fraud and error last year. The project does not appear to have been formally announced by the government, which has been accused of being secretive about AI in the welfare system: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/11/use-of-artificial-intelligence-widened-to-assess-universal-credit-applications-and-tackle 

Labour would use artificial intelligence to help those looking for work prepare their CVs, find jobs and receive payments faster, according to its shadow work and pensions secretary. Jonathan Ashworth told the Guardian he thought the Department for Work and Pensions was wasting millions of pounds by not using cutting-edge technology, even as the party also says AI could cause massive disruption to the jobs market. It will also use AI to a greater extent to help identify fraud and error in the system: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/10/labour-would-use-ai-to-help-people-find-jobs-says-jonathan-ashworth 

Almost 900,000 older people are admitted to hospital every year as an emergency because the NHS is failing to keep them healthy at home, Age UK has warned. A major lack of services outside hospitals means elderly people are also suffering avoidable harm, such as falls and urinary tract infections, the charity said. In a new report it urges NHS bosses to push through huge changes to how the “hospital-oriented” service operates and establish “home first” as the principle of where care is provided: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/11/900000-older-people-ae-lack-of-nhs-care-at-home 

13 July 2023

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Disabled activists vow fightback as nearly 1,000 rail ticket offices set to close

Disabled activists have vowed to fight back against government-backed plans for sweeping closures of ticket offices across England – including at some major city stations – with legal action now almost certain.

Even ticket offices at major stations such as Euston in London, Manchester Piccadilly, Birmingham New Street and Glasgow Central will eventually be closed, with nearly 1,000 ticket offices in all set to go.

It is the first suggestion that any Scottish ticket offices will also be affected by the closure plans.

Leaked documents have also revealed the first admissions by train companies that the plans to close ticket offices and move staff “out of ticket offices and on station platforms, concourses and ticket halls” will also lead to staff cuts.

The rail industry says the plans – pushed by the government – will modernise “station retailing” and see ticket office staff moving to “flexible roving roles”, where they “would be better able to give advice about the best and cheapest fares, advise on journey planning and support customers with accessibility needs”.

At least 13 train companies are believed to have launched three-week consultations on their own closure plans yesterday (Wednesday).

Train company Avanti West Coast says its plans will eventually lead to the closure of ticket offices at four major stations.

It says that ticket offices at Euston, Manchester Piccadilly, Birmingham New Street and Glasgow Central will only “remain for a short period” while customers “transition from traditional over the counter purchasing to a self-serve proposition”.

Avanti said the stations would stay open “short-term while the industry works together to digitalise the full range of tickets available at all stations”, which will “allow a period of time to support customers during the transition from traditional over the counter purchasing to a self-serve proposition”.

An Avanti spokesperson said: “The proposed changes will bring our staff closer to our customers and better trained to assist customers purchasing tickets, planning their journeys, and to provide extra support for those with accessibility needs.

“This should offer a better service to customers at our stations.”

But disabled activists have described the closures as “catastrophic”, “disgraceful” and “horrendous” and say they will have a huge impact on disabled passengers and their right to use the railway.

A document seen by Disability News Service (DNS), sent to staff by Northern, says it plans to close 131 of its 149 station ticket offices over 18 months from early 2024, leaving just 18 open.

And it warns that stations that are staffed will in future have staff on hand “on average for fewer hours per week”, while the “overall headcount” at stations “will reduce” once the new roles are introduced.

Sam Jennings, a leading accessible transport campaigner, told DNS that disabled people would fight back against the proposed closures, including possible legal action.

She said: “It’s a smack in the face and I felt it coming. It’s just disgusting.

“They know this is going to be catastrophic for disabled people and they are not mitigating it in any way.

“They are going to leave tens of thousands more people disabled by the railway. They are disabling us. It’s public transport. We are all tax-payers.”

Jennings, who was awarded compensation of £17,000 by Southern in 2021 after being left stranded on trains and station platforms more than 30 times, said: “After the last five years of asserting my rights and being given platitudes, it’s all been bollocks, because they’ve been planning this the whole time.

“I feel really mugged off as a member of the public who has had to fight so hard for access to public transport that should be accessible.

“The Disability Discrimination Act is nearly 30 years old… I shouldn’t be fighting like it’s my full-time job to be able to get on a train.”

Another disabled activist, Doug Paulley, who has previously warned transport secretary Mark Harper that he will take him to court if he goes ahead with ticket office closures, said legal action was now very likely.

He said he was “grimly sad” and “unsurprised” by yesterday’s announcements.

Paulley said: “It’s going to knock passengers’ sense of ease and confidence in travelling, particularly disabled people.

“It just shows that they don’t care about the travelling public and groups made vulnerable by them. It’s disgraceful.”

He said the government and the rail industry were being “knowingly disingenuous” when they talked about the closures, as they were just a cover for staff cuts.

Another disabled activist, Sarah Leadbetter, national campaigns officer for The National Federation of the Blind of the UK (NFB UK), said: “We are definitely fighting. We will fight to make sure this doesn’t happen.

“We have got to stop this because it’s horrendous and it’s disgusting.

“I am so angry. They are just excluding disabled people and elderly people again and again and again.

“I will not be able to travel. It will be excluding and isolating. That’s my independence gone.”

She said she believed NFB UK would support legal action against the planned closures.

One of the key concerns is that station ticket machines are often not accessible to many disabled people, while many disabled passengers – including blind and partially-sighted travellers – may not be able to track down a “roving” member of staff if they need assistance.

And campaigning organisations like the Association of British Commuters (ABC) are convinced the closures will lead to staff cuts.

Leadbetter, a guide dog-user, said the consultation process at her local station in Narborough, Leicestershire, appears to have involved simply putting a piece of paper on the wall of the station.

She also criticised the transport secretary, Mark Harper, as a former minister for disabled people.

She said: “I hope he lives to regret it, because [the closure plans are] excluding people.”

To respond to the consultations launched by individual train companies, passengers should contact the independent transport user watchdog Transport Focus, or London TravelWatch in London. The consultation period lasts just 21 days (until 26 July).

Rail Delivery Group, which represents the companies that run Britain’s railways, said in its briefing: “An estimated 99 per cent of all transactions made at ticket offices last year can be made at ticket vending machines (TVMs) or online and where needed, TVMs across the network will be improved and upgraded.

“Ticket office facilities will remain open at the busiest stations and interchanges, selling the full range of tickets while the transition takes place.

“Following these changes, if a customer is unable to buy a specific ticket before boarding the train because it was unavailable at the station, they would be able to buy one during their journey, at a ticket office en-route, or at their destination.”

But Caroline Eglinton, a disabled accessibility expert who has worked in the rail industry for 17 years and is the government’s disability and access ambassador for rail travel, told DNS: “I believe that it’s much more difficult to deliver an accessible service without ticket offices – so many rely on them to make their journeys possible, be that buying and paying for the correct ticket with cash or for seeking reassurance about their journey.

“Whilst it is useful to have staff ‘in front of the glass’, I don’t think that should be achieved by wholesale closure of ticket offices and could be delivered whilst maintaining the familiar and essential purpose that ticket offices serve for millions of people, particularly older and disabled people.”

The rail regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, provided some hope to disabled passengers yesterday by writing to train companies (PDF) to demand that they provide an assessment of how the closures will impact on their accessible travel policies (ATPs) and show what changes they plan to make at stations to ensure they comply with ATP guidance.

This includes the impact on providing a “turn up and go” service to disabled passengers, and on booked assistance, buying tickets, and providing information.

An ORR spokesperson said in a statement: “In light of proposals to change staffing arrangements, ORR has written to all train operators to ask them how they propose to remain compliant with Accessible Travel Policy guidance.

“The guidance addresses a wide range of issues, including ticketing and provision of assistance.

“Operators will need to submit any material changes to their Accessible Travel Policies to ORR for approval.”

ABC had led on drafting a letter from disabled campaigners and allies to ORR and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (see separate story) which called on Tuesday for the two regulators to make an “urgent intervention” to prevent the closures.

In the open letter, they said the plans were likely to “undo decades of progress made towards rail accessibility” and warned that the real purpose of the closure programme was to make cuts to staff by “stealth”, and that it could create 500 more unstaffed stations across England.

They also warned that access problems with ticket machines meant the planned closures would “guarantee a discriminatory impact on disabled people”.

6 July 2023

Government criticised again over lack of proper engagement with disabled people

The minister for disabled people has been criticised by one of his own MPs for failing to consult properly with disabled people’s organisations over his forthcoming disability action plan.

The criticism of Tom Pursglove comes only days after government lawyers were in the Court of Appeal trying to persuade judges that ministers did not carry out an unlawful consultation on their National Disability Strategy in early 2021.

Pursglove plans to publish his new disability action plan this summer, and he told the Commons women and equalities committee that it was “in addition to” the “long-term” National Disability Strategy.

He said the action plan would focus on “short-term changes that we can make, short-term improvements”.

Pursglove said he was “very disappointed and frustrated” that both the principle and the delivery of the strategy had had to be paused while the case was dealt with by the courts.

But Jackie Doyle-Price, a Conservative MP and former mental health minister, told Pursglove that she had been told by disabled people’s organisations that ministers had failed to include their input in his action plan.

She said that Fazilet Hadi, head of policy for Disability Rights UK, had told her: “The trouble is that this is not coming from disabled people… It’s not our list of actions.”

Doyle-Price said: “The message we are getting is that disability organisations do not feel that they own this agenda, they don’t feel that they’ve had the strategic input.”

Pursglove said this was “slightly premature” because the action plan had not yet been released for consultation.

But Doyle-Price said: “These organisations do need to feel that there’s ownership and that there is genuine collaboration or else we are not going to get anywhere.

“This is a set of people who are used to being patted on the head and if you’re really going to deliver a marked improvement and a cultural change as to how we empower people with disabilities that’s not going to be a very helpful starting place.”

Pursglove said he had been “very committed to engaging regularly” but Doyle-Price said it was “a cultural thing and it’s reflecting a history of dialogue”.

She said there had been similar feedback about the social care white paper, which was published in December 2021.

She said: “The needs of working-age adults have been lost because of the focus in terms of the politics on elderly social care.

“It feels like we really haven’t moved on in about five years in talking about this.”

Doyle-Price was also critical of ministers’ failure to make progress on reducing the number of people with learning difficulties and autistic people detained in inpatient mental health settings.

The current minister for mental health, Maria Caulfield, told the committee the government’s 2019 target was to cut the numbers by 50 per cent by March 2024, but she said they had managed just 30 per cent.

Caulfield said the Department of Health and Social Care was going through the records of each integrated care board (ICB) in England to check its progress and “finding out what it is that’s stopping them from being discharged”, and she was finding that it was “often about housing”.

Doyle-Price replied: “It’s all been about housing, and we’ve known it’s been about housing for years.”

She asked what conversations Caulfield was having with NHS England to manage this issue.

The minister said she was meeting with individual ICBs to “go through their patient lists and find out what the plan is for each individual patient”.

She said: “I’m not happy with it being at 30 per cent, I want it to get to 50 per cent.

“I want to be sure there is a plan in place for every single one. Because progress has been too slow, and we are working through the data, ICB by ICB, to find out what the challenges are.”

But Doyle-Price said this was “all talk and no delivery”, and she added: “This is why disability organisations have no confidence in this.

“We are not going to tackle what are systemic issues just by setting up more talking shops.”

Caulfield replied: “It’s not a talking-shop. If I’m meeting with the ICBs to go through their lists of patients who are not yet discharged, and finding out what those challenges are, that’s not a talking-shop, that’s practically looking at what the solutions are that we can deliver for each of those individual people.”

Doyle-Price also asked Caulfield why the government had yet to develop an initiative on public understanding of autism, which it had promised to introduce by the autumn of 2021.

But the minister replied: “I don’t have that particular information; I am happy to write to the committee about that.”

Caulfield wrote last month in a parliamentary response to the committee’s chair, Caroline Nokes, that the initiative “has not yet been implemented”.

When Caulfield was unable to explain to the committee why the initiative had not been delivered, Doyle-Price told her: “You don’t know then. That’s the answer.”

Caulfield said: “We haven’t got a date.”

But her party colleague replied: “The question is: why have we not got it yet? The answer to that question is not that we haven’t got a date, it is why.

“You don’t know why, so let’s move on.”

6 July 2023

Call for ‘urgent intervention’ from regulators to stop rail ticket office closures

Disabled campaigners and allies have called for an “urgent intervention” from regulators to prevent the closure of nearly 1,000 rail ticket offices across England.

In an open letter to the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), they say government-backed plans for a national closure programme are likely to “undo decades of progress made towards rail accessibility”.

The letter was sent the day before rail companies launched consultations on proposals to close most ticket offices in England (see separate story). 

The letter says the two regulators need to act urgently to ensure the closure programme takes full account of the possible impact on accessibility.

And they warn that the real purpose of the closure programme is to make cuts to staff by “stealth”, and that the closure programme could create 500 more unstaffed stations across England.

They also warn that access problems with ticket machines mean the planned closures will “guarantee a discriminatory impact on disabled people” if the government is allowed to press ahead with its plans, which will be implemented by train companies.

Among those who have signed the letter are Ann Bates, former chair and vice-chair of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC); Matthew Smith, who resigned from DPTAC last year, after accusing ministers of backing policies on de-staffing the rail network that discriminate against disabled rail passengers; and Caroline Eglinton, the government’s own disability and access ambassador for the rail industry.

The letter says: “If passengers cannot purchase the ticket they need from a ticket vending machine (TVM), they will have to travel to one of the few remaining ticket offices, probably at bigger stations.

“This will cause extra costs and inconvenience to all passengers seeking better ticket options, advice, refunds; and directly excludes anyone who finds TVMs or e-ticketing inaccessible.

“It is sure to have a disproportionate effect on disabled people and put them at ‘substantial disadvantage’.”

Emily Yates, co-founder of the Association of British Commuters, led on drafting the letter, which is also signed by leading disabled access campaigners including Doug Paulley, Tony Jennings, Christiane Link, Sam Jennings, Andrew Hodgson and Sarah Leadbetter.

It calls on ORR and EHRC to make a public statement on whether they are satisfied that steps have been taken to ensure accessibility is not affected by the closures.

It says: “If they do not believe this to be the case, they should call for an immediate pause to proceedings and prepare to make use of their full regulatory powers to intervene.”

They say in the letter that they fear the Department for Transport has not been meeting its public sector equality duty over the plans.

The letter adds: “It is hard to understand how there can possibly be an economic justification for these plans, which are likely to prevent the growth of ridership for all passenger groups; prevent access to employment, leisure, and health facilities; and undo decades of progress made towards rail accessibility – also undermining the value of current investments.”

An ORR spokesperson said on Tuesday: “ORR has today received the letter and will respond in due course.”

But ORR did write to train companies (PDF) the following day to demand that they provide an assessment of how the closures will impact on their accessible travel policies (ATPs) and show what changes they plan to make at stations to ensure they comply with ATP guidance.

This includes the impact of the closures on providing a “turn up and go” service to disabled passengers, as well as on booked assistance, ticket purchase, and the provision of information.

An ORR spokesperson said in a statement: “In light of proposals to change staffing arrangements, ORR has written to all train operators to ask them how they propose to remain compliant with accessible travel policy guidance.

“The guidance addresses a wide range of issues, including ticketing and provision of assistance.

“Operators will need to submit any material changes to their accessible travel policies to ORR for approval.”

An EHRC spokesperson said: “We have received the letter from the Association of British Commuters and will carefully consider the points raised before responding in due course.

“We are working with transport regulators, such as the Office of Rail and Road, to ensure disabled people receive fair and equal access to travel.

“We have also met with the Department for Transport regarding staffing on the rail network.

“Disabled people are protected under the 2010 Equality Act, which the EHRC is responsible for enforcing.

“Public bodies and private companies alike must anticipate the adjustments that people with disabilities will need, so they are not disadvantaged when using a service.

“Failure to do so may be unlawful discrimination, even if it is not intentional.”

6 July 2023

Royal households refuse to release data on disabled staff

The four most senior members of the royal family are refusing to release details of how many disabled people they employ across their two households.

Both Buckingham Palace, headed by the king and queen, and Kensington Palace, headed by the prince and princess of Wales, are refusing to release the figures, even though they both publish data showing the proportion of their staff from a minority ethnic background.

Both palaces claim to promote diversity, but they both refused this week to explain why they do not publish the figures, and both refused to even confirm whether they do collect data on disabled staff.

They also do not release figures showing what proportion of their staff identify as LGBT+ or any targets they might have for increasing the proportion of their staff identifying as LGBT+, or any targets for increasing the proportion of disabled staff.

A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said in a statement: “The royal household does not currently release this detail about its staff.

“The king and queen and the wider royal family have always promoted and embraced the diversity of our nation and we recognise that our own workforce needs to reflect the communities we serve.

“We’ve worked hard to ensure recruitment practices are fair and transparent, and that our employer brand is open and engaging and promotes career opportunities that are attractive to a wide pool of talent.”

The latest sovereign grant annual report (PDF), published last week, shows there are 595 full-time equivalent staff employed at Buckingham Palace, of whom 9.7 per cent are minority ethnic employees.

The report says – in an almost exact replica of last year’s report: “Inclusion and Diversity are valued, all appointments and promotions are on merit, with active consideration given to applicants with disabilities and support to employees who become disabled to ensure their development and career progression continues.”

Kensington Palace said that 16.3 per cent of its 50 staff are from a minority ethnic background, an increase from 13.6 per cent last year, while 64 per cent of its staff are women.

It claims that diversity is extremely important to the palace and that it is always striving to become more diverse and inclusive.

Last year, Buckingham Palace said that data on the number of disabled staff was collected, reviewed and discussed at senior levels.

But both Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace have refused to say whether they set any targets for disabled and LGBT+ staff, and why these figures are not released.

A spokesperson for the Equality and Human Rights Commission said: “A diverse workforce benefits employers.

“More diversity means a wider range of views and experiences can be shared and built upon, leading to better, more informed decision making.

“Although organisations are not generally required to publish diversity data, a first step towards achieving a more inclusive workforce is for any employer to collect and analyse data on the diversity of their employees – for example on disability, race, age and sex.

“This would identify where there may be issues and help employers to act and tackle the barriers some groups face within the workplace.

“Transparency is encouraged when publishing data, however this may not be appropriate in certain situations.

“For example, publishing the data of a small workforce could lead to the identification of staff.

“Taking specific steps to improve equality in the workplace, such as positive action measures, eliminating bias in recruitment and offering flexible working at all levels, can also be used to lessen disadvantage and increase participation.”

6 July 2023

Rare DWP success sees long waits for new PIP claimants plummet

The number of disabled people waiting longer than six months to be told whether they have been successful in their claim for a key disability benefit has plummeted over the last year, new figures have shown.

Figures obtained by Disability News Service (DNS) show that the number of people with a new claim for personal independence payment (PIP) who were waiting longer than six months for a decision has fallen from more than 20,000 to 300 in just 12 months.

The figures, provided by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), show that the number of disabled people having to undergo the longest waits for a new PIP claim has fallen every month since May 2022, when there were 20,100 new claimants who had been waiting six months or more for a decision by the end of the month.

In June 2022 that fell to 17,500, and then to 16,800 in July 2022, before continuing to drop to 15,800, 15,500 in September 2022, and then 13,400, 10,900 and 9,500 by the end of December.

The number of long waits has continued to fall this year, with 6,500 new PIP claimants waiting longer than six months by the end of January, then 5,300, 3,200 in March and finally just 300 by the end of April.

The unpublished figures apply only to England and Wales, and they exclude claims for those who were terminally-ill.

In its response to the figures, DWP told DNS: “We are committed to ensuring that people can access financial support through personal independence payment (PIP) in a timely manner.

“We always aim to make an award decision as quickly as possible, taking into account the need to review all available evidence.”

Despite the huge falls in those waiting longer than six months for a PIP decision, DWP declined to welcome the figures, commenting instead on average clearance times.

A DWP spokesperson said: “Since August 2021 we’ve halved the time it takes for PIP payments to be approved and processed – making sure people can access the support they are entitled to quickly.”

It said the current average “end-to-end” clearance time for new PIP claims was 13 weeks – about three months – including the period allowed for claimants to complete and return their questionnaire.

One of the measures it has taken, it says, is to prioritise new PIP claims, while ensuring that payments continue until an award review can be completed for claimants who are awaiting reviews of existing PIP claims and have returned the necessary information.

The release of the figures comes as the Conservative party appears to be considering plans to means-test PIP as a way of cutting spending.

The government may be keen to cut waiting-times for PIP because its plans to scrap the work capability assessment will place pressure on DWP to ensure PIP waiting-times are kept to acceptable levels.

Under those plans, which will only go ahead if the Conservatives win the next election, eligibility for out-of-work disability benefits – through a new universal credit “health element” – will be decided by the PIP assessment process.

Meanwhile, the latest figures have shown that it is still taking an average of more than 40 minutes for a call to the PIP enquiry telephone line to get through to an adviser, while hundreds of thousands of callers a month are being deliberately disconnected by DWP before they can even join the queue to speak to a PIP adviser.

And the latest figures from the tribunal service show that, between January and March 2023, 68 per cent of PIP appeals found in favour of the claimant.

6 July 2023

Government scraps plans to improve accessible housing scheme

The government has abandoned its pledge to consult on three improvements to the scheme that funds disabled people to make access improvements to their homes, Disability News Service can reveal.

Ministers promised in their People at the Heart of Care white paper in December 2021 to consult on the three changes to the disabled facilities grant (DFG) scheme “in 2022”.

But the Department of Health and Social Care has now admitted – in a response to a freedom of information request – that it has abandoned those promises.

It has also apparently abandoned plans to set up a new service to make minor repairs and changes in disabled people’s homes.

One consultation was to examine proposals to increase the upper limit for a DFG for an individual adaptation, currently set at £30,000 in England – although councils can increase this on a case-by-case basis – which would mean “that more people who need the grant across the country will be able to access it”.

An independent review of DFGs, commissioned by the government, recommended an increase to the upper limit in December 2018.

Another pledge was to simplify the means test underpinning the DFG system, which the government said was “complex and can be difficult to navigate”.

And the third was to examine how DFG funding was allocated to local authorities to “help ensure better alignment with local demand so that more adaptations reach those who need them most”.

But all three consultations have been scrapped.

The white paper also included plans to fund a new service to make minor repairs and changes in disabled people’s homes to “help them stay safe and independent and reduce demand for more substantial adaptations through the DFG”.

The four proposals were described in the white paper as “the next important steps towards our 10 year vision for transforming the role that housing plays in adult social care”.

The government has increased funding for DFGs from £220 million in 2015-16 to £505 million in 2019-20 and £573 million in 2022-23, although the 2018 review pointed to concerns that local authority contributions towards DFGs had fallen and so the number of homes adapted had not significantly increased.

In April this year, the government announced another £102 million in funding over two years.

In its response to the Disability News Service freedom of information request, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said the three consultations “are not currently being taken forward”.

It pointed to a parliamentary response from care minister Helen Whately, who said last month – in response to questions about the consultations from Labour’s Seema Malhotra – that the extra DFG funding would “enable local areas to fund supplementary services that are agile and help people stay independent, support hospital discharge, and make minor adaptations”.

Whately added: “Local areas already have discretion on how they manage the grant, for example, they can increase the cap on a case-by-case basis or in line with a locally published housing assistance policy.

“They can also choose to waive the means test for grants costing under a certain amount.

“As with all aspects of the Disabled Facilities Grants, Government will continue to keep these reforms under review.”

The freedom of information response said that the government’s Next Steps to Put People at the Heart of Care policy paper, published in April, “provides more detail on the way in which the Government intends to deliver the services (for minor repairs and changes in people’s home) to which you refer”.

But there appears to be nothing in that document that relates to setting up a new minor repairs service, another promise which appears to have been abandoned.

DHSC had failed to explain by noon today (Thursday) why the three consultations were scrapped or to confirm that the new minor repairs service had also been scrapped.

6 July 2023

Legalising assisted suicide ‘would mean state endorsing NHS-funded deaths’

Legalising assisted suicide would mean the state “endorsing” NHS-funded deaths, at a time when just one-third of palliative care is government-funded, MPs have been warned.

Dr Matthew Doré, honorary secretary of the Association for Palliative Medicine of Great Britain and Ireland, said legalised assisted suicide would be state-funded while two-thirds of palliative care was still funded by charities.

He told the Commons health and social care committee: “That is the state essentially endorsing death while not funding and paying for palliative care.”

Dr Doré said legalisation was a “public safety” issue, because taking that step would “risk the wider majority of the population”.

He was giving evidence to the committee as part of its inquiry into assisted suicide.

He compared the proposed legalisation of assisted suicide to capital punishment, where people who were executed by the state were subsequently found to be innocent, despite a “full judicial process” that found them guilty “beyond reasonable doubt” following “months of deliberation” by the legal system.

Dr Doré pointed to diagnoses of motor neurone disease that had later proved to be wrong, and he said that research had suggested that one in five older people had been abused.

He told the committee: “There are going to be incorrect deaths. So… how many incorrect deaths justify… the right to pre-emptively kill yourself early?”

He also warned that legalisation would mean palliative care would become “subservient” to assisted suicide in hospices, as he said had happened in Canada with its Medical Assistance in Dying programme.

And he said that non-assisted suicides had risen sharply in the US state of Oregon after it legalised assisted suicide and “imbued in the culture” that “there are circumstances in which it’s not worth living”.

He added: “Laws are more than just rules. They send cultural messages.”

The committee also heard on Tuesday from Helen Whately, the minister for care, who repeated the government’s long-established position that any change in the law was “something for parliament to decide”.

She said: “It’s an issue of conscience for individual members of parliament.

“If the will of parliament is that the law on assisted dying should change, then government would not stand in its way.”

She said she was not aware of any government discussions about the potential implications of another part of the UK legalising assisted suicide, with Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man all apparently moving in that direction.

6 July 2023

Watchdog agrees to review guidance after by-election hustings access concerns

The elections watchdog has agreed to review its guidance, after criticism over its failure to advise organisers of election hustings that they should do everything they can to make them accessible for disabled people.

Disabled campaigners spoke out after it emerged that there were no plans to live-stream two of the hustings events being organised ahead of the by-election to replace Boris Johnson in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency.

Disability Politics UK called on the Electoral Commission this week to issue new guidance that would encourage organisers of hustings to make them accessible.

It pointed to the two events being held on the Brunel University London campus in Uxbridge.

Despite the university running online events for students during the pandemic, neither of the hustings was planned to be live-streamed until complaints from Disability Politics and others forced organisers to hurriedly arrange an online option on the day of the first event.

The first hustings was held on Tuesday this week and was hosted by Hillingdon Chamber of Commerce.

The second hustings event, on 13 July, will be hosted by the Hillingdon Herald, the university’s own student-run newspaper.

Deborah King, co-founder of Disability Politics UK, was critical of the commission’s lack of guidance.

She said: “One of the few positive outcomes of Covid was the increase in availability of online access to events.

“We would expect all people organising hustings to try and ensure they are held at venues which can facilitate online access, so that disabled people can access them online.

“Disabled people’s voices are overlooked by political parties of all hues. We want better access to politics.”

An Electoral Commission spokesperson said its hustings guidance was “primarily focused on compliance with electoral law and sets out how spending on hustings may be regulated” and was “non-exhaustive, voluntary guidance, rather than statutory guidance”.

But she added: “However, it is important that elections are accessible for all those involved and that includes events such as hustings.

“We plan to review our guidance in the coming months to ensure it reflects the needs of voters, parties and campaigners, and will consider any guidance we can include on accessibility.”

A Brunel University London spokesperson told Disability News Service late in the afternoon on the day of the first hustings that both events would be live-streamed.

He refused to respond when asked to confirm that live-streaming had only been arranged that day, following complaints about the accessibility of the events. 

He also refused to comment on whether Electoral Commission guidance on accessibility would be useful.

Hillingdon Chamber of Commerce had failed to comment by noon today (Thursday).

6 July 2023

Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week

Disabled comedian Rosie Jones has faced a backlash from campaigners following the announcement of a Channel 4 project that aims to educate viewers on the abuse disabled people face. There has been so much concern about its title – Rosie Jones: Am I a R*tard– that three disabled contributors who were set to feature in the programme have withdrawn from the project: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/rosie-jones-disability-documentary-title-backlash-b2368940.html *Channel 4 does not use an asterisk in its marketing of the programme

A government document that guides doctors on how to assess benefit claims has been withdrawn after it was found to include a racist slur, The Independent can reveal. The Department for Work and Pensions guidance, first issued in 2010 to help assess disability benefit claims but still in use until just days ago, referred to Black people as being of the “N*****d race”. The document, referring specifically to assessments for osteoporosis, has now been scrapped after The Independent highlighted that it was still in circulation: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/dwp-guidance-document-scrapped-slur-b2368917.html

The Creative Diversity Network’s sixth annual report on inclusivity in the UK TV industry reveals a generally sorry state of affairs with some sparks of progress. Disabled individuals and individuals from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds also continue to be underrepresented in senior positions, while craft roles remain largely segregated: https://variety.com/2023/tv/global/women-disabled-minorities-underrepresented-uk-tv-1235662447/

6 July 2023

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Osborne’s pandemic denial over austerity damage to social care

One of the architects of the Conservative austerity years has denied to the Covid public inquiry that the spending cuts left a “depleted” health and social care system and rising inequality by the time the pandemic hit in 2020.

When asked by Kate Blackwell, a counsel to the inquiry, whether that was the case, George Osborne said (PDF): “Most certainly not. I completely reject that.”

Osborne, who was chancellor from 2010 to 2016, was giving evidence to the inquiry – which has now entered its second week of public hearings – as part of its investigation into the UK’s preparedness and resilience for a pandemic. 

He was later asked if government policy had damaged the social care and health systems to such an extent that “those in the worst situations of society were disproportionately affected when Covid hit”, and if that situation had been “identifiable” and “predictable” and “should have been part of the government planning”.

But Osborne told the inquiry on Tuesday: “I just completely reject that.”

He said Britain had been coping with the after-effects of a “huge economic crash” and “of course that had an impact on poverty in the country”.

He claimed this poverty “would have been worse” if the government had not “tried to address the risk to the public finances, because that would have led to a fiscal crisis, like you saw across much of Europe, that would have meant even less funding for these public services”.

But when asked if the state of the social care system worsened during his time in office, he said he was “not sure” and claimed that the social care and health systems were experiencing “exactly the same kinds of pressures as the pressures being experienced in most western democracies”.

He added: “And if we had not had a clear plan to put the public finances on a sustainable path, then Britain might have… experienced a fiscal crisis, [and] would not have had the fiscal space to deal with the coronavirus pandemic when it hit seven years later.”

He later admitted that there had been significant cuts to local government budgets in the years he had been chancellor in successive Conservative-led governments.

Osborne was shown an Office for Budget Responsibility fiscal risk report from July 2017, a year after he left office, which showed that spending in real terms on adult social care in England had fallen by 9.1 per cent between 2010-11 and 2015-16.

He admitted that “there were reductions in local government budgets” which was “because the country had had an enormous financial crash” and “was poorer than it had been before”.

He said the debate about the “social care problem” was still “unsolved” because “the solutions are currently unpalatable to the political system, which I would suggest is a reflection of being unpalatable to the broader taxpayer and society”.

Blackwell asked him if he believed that, although “in certain aspects” the effects of Covid were “felt more keenly by those most disadvantaged in society”, that had had “no connection whatsoever to the effects of austerity that were brought in in 2010”.

He replied: “That’s absolutely my contention.”

During his evidence, the former chancellor also questioned whether it was right that schools were closed during the pandemic to save the lives of people who were particularly vulnerable to the virus.

He told the inquiry: “You know, I don’t want to jump ahead for this inquiry, but should the schools have been locked down in the way they were?”

He said these were “absolutely critical questions about balancing, you know, the life expectancy of an 80-year-old versus the educational opportunities of an eight-year-old, incredibly hard questions”.

He added: “I had school-age children at the time of the pandemic… Some people will say the education of the child is more important than, you know, protecting older patients in, you know, our care homes.”

He said that “if you can give some kind of guidance to answering that question, it is the single most useful thing this inquiry can do for any future government”.

22 June 2023

Years of government policies ‘have had little or no impact on job discrimination’

Mounting evidence suggests that years of government employment policies have had little or no impact on reducing the discrimination disabled people face in the jobs market.

Government figures and new analysis show instead that disability equality for disabled people has remained almost static when it comes to finding and keeping jobs.

Ministers have repeatedly boasted that the number of disabled people in employment has increased substantially over the last decade, including by two million between the third quarter of 2013 and the third quarter of 2022.

They often suggest that that increase is a result of interventions such as the Work and Health Programme, the discredited Disability Confident scheme, the Access to Work programme and “work to further join up employment and health systems”.

But disabled people have repeatedly accused ministers of failing to take meaningful action to address the employment barriers they face, such as the lack of enforcement of disabled workers’ rights to reasonable adjustments or the flaws in the Access to Work system.

Tom Pursglove, the minister for disabled people, admitted earlier this month – in response to a question from disabled Labour MP Marsha de Cordova – that the increase in disability employment was “driven primarily by rising disability prevalence and a strengthening of the overall labour market”.

Government figures released in January found that 60 per cent of the increase in disabled people in employment was simply due to a sharp rise in the number of people identifying as disabled.

Those government figures estimated that only 15 per cent of the increase in disabled people in work was due to a narrowing in the disability employment gap – the difference in the proportion of disabled and non-disabled people in jobs.

But the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has now admitted to Disability News Service (DNS) that it cannot prove that even this small proportion of the increase was due to government policies.

Pursglove had previously argued that the impact of factors including government policies to tackle the disability employment gap accounted for about 25 per cent of the increase in the number of disabled people in work.

But when DNS asked in a freedom of information request for any evidence to show that government policies directed towards reducing the gap had managed to do so, DWP replied: “We confirm that we do not hold the information requested regarding the effect of government policies on reducing the disability employment gap.”

It argued that “isolating the direct effect of a single policy on the disability employment gap is complex” and it partly blamed the impact of “external factors” and the interaction of different policies with each other.

The January figures also showed that the disability employment gap was now at its widest point since 2018, at about 30 per cent, just four percentage points lower than in 2013.

Now analysis by the Disability@Work group of academics suggests that even the 15 per cent of the rise in disability employment caused by a narrowing of the disability employment gap may not be due to a fall in discrimination.

Professor Victoria Wass, of Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, pointed out that the National Audit Office (NAO) had previously found that the increase in people identifying as disabled “was a particular feature of those in employment”, with the NAO saying (PDF, paragraph 19) it was “only people who are in employment where the trend has happened”.

She said: “In these circumstances, a falling disability employment gap does not support a claim that equality for disabled people has improved in the area of employment.”

Earlier analysis by Disability@Work has previously reached the same conclusion.

That analysis showed last year that an increase of 1.3 million in the number of disabled people in work between 2017 and 2022 was “meaningless” when it came to the inequality disabled people faced in the jobs market.

Wass also pointed to government figures from January’s report which found that, between 2014 and 2021, disabled workers moved out of work at nearly twice the rate (8.9 per cent) of non-disabled workers (5.1 per cent).

The report also found that workless disabled people moved into work at nearly one-third of the rate (9.7 per cent) of workless non-disabled people (26.8 per cent).

Wass said: “These differences indicate that disabled people are more likely to leave employment and very much less likely to enter employment than non-disabled people.”

De Cordova told Disability News Service: “The Tories in government have completely failed disabled people by creating a hostile environment over the past 13 years.

“As the minister’s response to my question shows, the increase in disabled people’s participation in the market was ‘driven primarily by rising disability prevalence and a strengthening of the overall labour market’ rather than the government’s non-existent policies to remove employment barriers that disabled people face.

“It’s time for the government to get real and meaningfully act to remove employment barriers faced by disabled people.”

A DWP spokesperson said: “The government is committed to supporting disabled people and people with health conditions stay and succeed in work, and a range of initiatives have contributed to the disability employment gap closing by 4.8 per cent and the disability employment rate rising by 9.5 per cent since 2014. 

“Our £58 million Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care scheme not only helps disabled people and people with health conditions move into a job that suits their needs, but also provides them and their employers with wraparound support during their work to help them sustain employment in the long term.”

22 June 2023

‘Deep concern’ over decision to allow Treasury to hide budget equality impact

Campaigners have told the information commissioner of their “deep concern” over his decision to allow the Treasury to hide information that would show how last year’s budget was set to impact disabled people and other equality groups.

Women’s Budget Group, Runnymede Trust* and Disability Rights UK have today (Thursday) sent a joint letter (PDF) about this decision to both the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the Treasury.

The letter expresses their “disappointment and profound concern” at the ICO ruling in March (PDF) which concluded that the government did not need to publish an equality impact assessment (EIA) of last year’s spring budget.

Disability News Service (DNS) had asked the Treasury last year to release the EIA through a freedom of information request.

But this week’s letter says the ICO ruling has prevented an “effective evaluation” of whether the Treasury fulfilled its obligation under the public sector equality duty to have “due regard” to equality.

And they say the ruling means the information commissioner is failing in his responsibility “to promote transparency in matters of public interest”.

They say that both recent and historical changes to taxes and social security have “disproportionately” affected the “most discriminated against communities in the UK”.

They say that disabled single parents, most of whom are women, were the group worst hit by austerity measures between 2010 and 2021, losing 21 per cent of their income through changes to taxes and benefits, and rising to 32 per cent if they had a disabled child.

Black and minority ethnic women have experienced a £1,040 decrease in benefits over the past decade, they say, while some groups of women, particularly lower income, Black and minority ethnic, and disabled women, “face multiple disadvantages”.

The letter adds: “…transparency and access to government information during and after the policy-making process are vital to ensure that we are able to support the government in formulating policies that benefit society as a whole and align with the Equality Act 2010.”

It calls on the Treasury to carry out and publish a “meaningful cumulative impact assessment” of every budget and spending review.

The trio of equality groups say it is “disappointing to see the Information Commissioner’s Office make a decision that contradicts the principles of upholding information rights and promoting openness for the public interest, thus hindering civil society’s ability to support and hold the government accountable”, and they call on ICO to reconsider its decision.

DNS has been trying for more than a year to persuade the Treasury to release the assessment it made of the equality impact of the measures in last year’s much-criticised spring statement.

But the Treasury has refused to release the information, telling DNS it would not be in the public interest to release analysis that “could be misleading for a general audience”.

It also claimed that releasing the analysis would have a “chilling effect” on how it prepared evidence to support ministers as they draw up policies, which would “lead to poorer decision making”.

DNS lodged a complaint about the Treasury’s decision with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

But information commissioner John Edwards ruled that the Treasury was not acting unlawfully and is entitled to keep its analysis secret.

He said the Treasury was allowed to rely on section 35 of the Freedom of Information Act, an exemption clause that lets public bodies refuse to release information if it is linked to forming or developing government policy.

Kamran Mallick, chief executive of Disability Rights UK, said: “All the evidence points to disabled people being disproportionately affected by poverty and inequality.

“Half the people in poverty are either disabled people or people who have a disabled person in their household.

“Disabled people are hit hard by cuts to public services, low benefit rates and the rising costs of food, energy and housing.

“It is absolutely vital that the Treasury understands the impact of its actions and is open and transparent about how their policies affect disabled people.”

Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, director of Women’s Budget Group, said: “Transparency is crucial in formulating policies that benefit society as a whole and comply with the Equality Act 2010.

“It is essential that the Treasury provides stakeholders with insight into the analysis of policy issues, for us to engage effectively with the government.

“The information commissioner’s reasons just don’t stack up.

“How can the Treasury be held to account for complying with equalities law if they won’t show their workings?”

Disabled people reacted with disbelief in March 2022 to the “cruel” decision of the then chancellor Rishi Sunak to all-but-ignore those who rely on benefits in the spring statement, even as the Office for Budget Responsibility was warning that the real value of benefits was set to fall by five per cent in 2022-23.

There was no mention in his speech of disabled people and how many of them were struggling to survive, and no attempt to increase benefits to match the sharply rising rate of inflation.

It was not until late May 2022 that Sunak was forced to announce a “sticking plaster” injection of £15 billion in grants and other funding in an attempt to ease the cost-of-living crisis.

The Treasury had not commented on the letter by noon today (Thursday).

An ICO spokesperson said: “The decision notice in this case, published on our website, sets out our position.

“If a requestor disagrees with a decision we have reached in their FOI case, the appropriate way to challenge it is by appeal to the Information Rights Tribunal.”

*Women’s Budget Group is a feminist think tank and Runnymede Trust is an independent race equality think tank

22 June 2023

Judge’s care charges ruling criticises council’s ‘extraordinary’ approach on costs

A high court judge has criticised a council for taking an “extraordinary” approach to calculating an autistic man’s care charges, which placed too much emphasis on costs and not enough on his right to live independently.

The judge has ruled (PDF) that Windsor and Maidenhead council behaved unlawfully by refusing to view activities the man attended as part of a social and life skills group as “disability-related” spending.

The council will now have to reconsider its calculations.

The claimant, who is 25 and was referred to in the case as RW, is autistic and receives direct payments from Windsor and Maidenhead council to fund his care and support package, but he contributes to the cost of that support through weekly care charges.

As part of that package, he attends a social and life skills group, Step Together (ST), three times a week and has one-to-one support from ST staff at his home twice a week.

RW has difficulties communicating and can struggle to make himself understood, which causes him significant anxiety, and he is unable to understand non-verbal communication.

But attending the social and life skills group has made him happier and more confident, his family say, and without those sessions he can become withdrawn, isolated and depressed.

On top of the cost of attending the group, he pays for the activities he attends, which are not covered by his support package.

He argued that the cost of attending these activities should be seen as “disability-related expenditure”, disability-related costs that should be taken into consideration when assessing how much he can afford to pay every week in care charges.

The council disagreed, and claimed RW had “chosen” the activities, and so they were not disability-related, and that his need was for support from staff and not for the activities, while there were cheaper ways for him to have social interaction, and that such spending was part of his “care and support”.

As a result, RW’s care charges reached about £320 a month, which he could not afford to pay and often had to ask his mother to cover, leaving him “stressed and demoralised”.

But the judge found the council was “wrong” to conclude that the activities he attended at the social and life skills group were not disability-related.

He concluded that in “an important and material respect”, the council had failed to meet RW’s eligible care and support needs by refusing to recognise the activity costs as disability-related expenditure.

Deputy high court judge Dexter Dias said the council was also wrong to fail to take enough account of “adverse emotional impact, social anxiety, the claimant’s wishes and feelings, autonomy and choice” and that it had given “disproportionate, excessive and unreasonable weight to financial considerations”.

The judge concluded that the council had not “carefully weighed” the impact on RW if he could not attend the group sessions.

And he suggested that the council had failed to take account of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by placing “undue emphasis” on the question of cost without properly considering the impact on RW, who needs support to live “independently and autonomously”.

RW had said in his care plan that the other attendees at the social and life skills group were “the only group of friends that I have”.

He had said in a statement that the other attendees of the ST group were his “circle and support system”, adding: “I otherwise have difficulty making and maintaining friendships and without social contact I can get very low.”

The judge described the council’s approach as “extraordinary” because it had “discounted” spending that allowed RW “to develop his social skills and confidence through the arranged groups activities in the context of an environment he feels secure in”.

He also suggested that the council had failed to take account of disabled people’s rights under the UN convention to be put at the heart of decision-making.

He concluded that the council had behaved unlawfully.

RW said after the judgment: “I am very glad to have won this case and it will help me to continue attending my group without all the financial worry.”

Inclusion London and Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People (GMCDP) both praised RW for taking the case.

Svetlana Kotova, director of campaigns and justice for Inclusion London, which is campaigning for the government and local authorities to scrap all care charges, said the judgment “exposes how cruel, intimidating and often oppressive the system of claiming DRE is*”. 

She said: “Windsor is not an exception. We see many cases where local authorities come up with all kinds of reasons not to allow DRE. 

“People who already struggle financially and require support are made to evidence every penny, argue and complain for months and often years just to keep a bit more of their benefits money and spend it on extra costs that they need. 

“It is a scandal that the judge has to remind local authorities that cheapest is not the best and that they need to consider things on an individual basis, taking into account wider context.”

Helen Rowlands, a GMCDP executive council member, said that navigating DRE was often a “bureaucratic nightmare for disabled people with statutory non-residential care needs who are charged by their local authority for the support they need”.

She said: “Financial assessment officers’ understanding of the statutory guidance on DRE can be patchy, and in the worst cases, unlawful misinterpretations are guiding councils’ DRE refusals.”

Rowlands said the ruling had now provided councils with “crystal clear legal guidance”.

She said: “The Care Act requires them to fairly consider any claim for DRE on a case-by-case basis, in a sensitive examination of the disabled person’s needs, with reference to their care plan and the statutory guidance.

“That guidance is informed by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), and this case gives additional weight to the vital importance of the parties at Westminster committing to adoption of UNCRPD into domestic law within the first 100 days of the next government.”

RW was represented in his legal case by law firm Leigh Day and barrister Emma Foubister, from Matrix Chambers.

Lucy Cadd, a solicitor at Leigh Day, said: “This is a very sensible and robust judgment that will have important implications for the way claims for disability-related expenditure should be considered by local authorities.

“Going forward, local authorities will need to consider any claim for disability-related expenditure on a case-by-case basis, fairly and sensitively examining the claimant’s needs by reference to their care plan and flexibly interpreting the regulations and guidance which have been informed by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.”

Windsor and Maidenhead council initially refused to even acknowledge a request to comment from Disability News Service, before eventually refusing to comment.

*Inclusion London has launched a DREy tool, which helps disabled people document their disability-related expenditure, alongside a guide on how to use the tool and template letters to send to their local authority if they do not respond positively

22 June 2023

Report set to amplify experiences of Black disabled people in music industry

A new report has provided the first step towards amplifying the experiences of “unseen” and “unheard” Black disabled people who experience widespread discrimination in the UK music industry.

It highlights the intersectional* barriers that Black disabled music creators and professionals face every day.

The report says that 80 per cent of Black disabled music creators and 89 per cent of Black disabled music professionals who took part in a survey believed they had faced some sort of discrimination in the music industry.

And 74 per cent of Black disabled music creators felt there were specific barriers to success in the industry because of their race or ethnicity, compared to 58 per cent of Black non-disabled creators.

The report** is the first product of a new partnership between two campaigning organisations, Black Lives In Music (BLIM) and Attitude is Everything, which aims to amplify the experiences of Black disabled people in the music industry and break down the barriers they face.

It combines responses from nearly 150 Black disabled people who responded to a groundbreaking BLIM survey in 2021 and new interviews carried out by BLIM.

One of the Black disabled women who were interviewed for the report explained why she does not reveal her impairment until she secures a job.

She says in the report: “I’m a Black woman. Being a Black woman. Being a plus-sized Black woman. Being a Black woman with a child. Being a Black woman with a child with ‘special needs’. Then you’re going to add a disability to that?

“That’s why I don’t tell them. I don’t want to say. If I get the job, you’ll find out.”

Among the report’s recommendations is for industry events to consider disabled people and their access requirements “from planning through to delivery”, and for the music industry to ensure that Black disabled people are involved in marketing campaigns “in meaningful and non-tokenistic ways”.

It also calls for employers to consult Black disabled employees on their mentoring needs and support them to access career development opportunities.

Esta Rae, senior events manager at the Association of Independent Music, who writes in the foreword of her own experience as a “Black female creative working in the industry and being neurodivergent”, says the report provides “a small snippet of the voices of the Black creatives that are unseen in this industry, giving space for some to be heard”.

She says the report shows how “many feel they cannot progress and that they are not recognised as talented artists or industry professionals with vast potential to contribute to this industry we all love”.

Suzanne Bull, founder of Attitude is Everything, said: “The Unseen Unheard report and podcast series marks the first major intervention generated by our partnership with Black Lives In Music.

“It’s a rallying cry to the industry to listen to Black disabled artists and professionals and to respond to their experiences of race and disability-related barriers.”

Charisse Beaumont, chief executive of Black Lives In Music, said: “Together with Attitude is Everything, Black Lives In Music are on a mission for Black disabled music creators and professionals to no longer be unseen and unheard but instead celebrated, uplifted and granted the same opportunities as others.

“Eradicating discrimination and creating platforms and pathways to showcase their talent and skills so they can thrive and have the careers they truly deserve.”

Yesterday (Wednesday), the two organisations also launched an Unseen Unheard podcast series, which will interview Black disabled creators and industry professionals about their experiences within the industry, and will be hosted on the Black Lives In Music YouTube channel and on podcast platforms.

*“Intersectional” describes how different types of discrimination combine to create oppression, so that, for example, the experience of a Black disabled woman will be different to that of a white disabled woman or a gay disabled man

**Unseen. Unheard. Race and Disability – Black disabled experience in the UK’s music industry

22 June 2023

PIP phone waiting-times even higher than previously thought, DWP admits

Waiting-times faced by disabled people trying to use a benefit enquiry line are even higher than previously thought, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has admitted.

Disability News Service (DNS) revealed last week that the “average speed of answer” for the personal independence payment (PIP) telephone enquiry line reached 38 minutes and 50 seconds in April.

It had risen from 23 minutes in January, to 31 minutes in February, and 37 minutes in March.

The figures were provided in response to a DNS freedom of information request.

But when Tom Pursglove, the minister for disabled people, was asked for these figures by Labour’s Jon Trickett, the figures he provided on 16 June were even higher.

They show that the waiting-times rose from 25 minutes in January, to nearly 35 minutes in February, 40 minutes in March, and as high as 44 minutes in April, before falling in May to nearly 41 minutes.

These are just average waiting-times, with many disabled people reporting far higher waits before they can speak to someone, while the Benefits and Work website has revealed that nearly half a million callers to the PIP helpline in April were deliberately disconnected by DWP before they could even join the queue to speak to an adviser.

The number of disconnections rose from 34,860 in February, to 306,865 in March and 494,044 in April.

Benefits and Work reported that the number of blocked calls in April was even greater than the number allowed to join the queue (388,265).

DWP told DNS this week that the waiting-times provided to Trickett were higher than those given to DNS because they did not include figures for the PIP mandatory reconsideration enquiry line.

Pursglove told Trickett that PIP had “experienced unprecedented levels of new claims from customers in recent months and, as a result, we have seen increased call traffic”.

He said: “We are currently in the process of recruiting additional resource into telephony, so that we can increase the number of calls answered and reduce current wait times.”

DWP’s figures show the rise in new PIP claims – under the normal rules procedure – in February, March and April 2023, compared with the same months in 2022, was just 8.4 per cent.

22 June 2023

Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week

Three-quarters of magistrates courts in England and Wales are inadequately accessible for disabled people, with a lack of ramps, inaccessible toilets and non-functioning hearing loops all featuring as failings. An on-the-ground survey carried out by the Magistrates Association assessed the accessibility of 57 buildings – more than a third of magistrates courts – and found a plethora of problems. Only one building was found to be “good” across all areas assessed, which included magistrate entrances, car parks and public areas: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2023/jun/19/most-magistrates-courts-england-wales-accessibility-failings

The number of disabled pupils in England issued with a support plan has more than doubled in the last eight years to 180 a day, driving up deficits in local authority budgets to “unmanageable levels”, according to analysis by the County Councils Network. A record half a million pupils now have an education, health and care plan: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jun/21/england-pupils-special-needs-support-plan-local-authority-deficits

Proposals to increase social care charges in Telford and Wrekin are going out to public consultation. About half of those receiving help are likely to see their charges go up, the council said: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-65951363

A town council on the Isle of Wight will have to pay out more than £5,000 after a judge found it breached the Equality Act — due to the closing mechanism installed on an accessible toilet. Joe Nash said he was prevented from using the wheelchair-accessible toilet at The Cut, Cowes High Street, by Cowes Town Council after it refused a request to remove a “very powerful” hydraulic door closure: https://www.countypress.co.uk/news/23602495.isle-wight-town-council-disabled-toilets-breaches-equality-act/

22 June 2023

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Online workshop: Recognising, Resisting, and Reorienting Algorithmic Systems for Disability Justice

This workshop engages with disability and disablement in relation to the growing impact of data analytics and algorithmic decision-making (ADM) in the public sector. The workshop brings together lived experience, advocate perspectives, legal expertise, and academic analysis in discussion of the problems and potentialities that ADM poses for disabled people. A series of short presentations will explore how digital data is used to measure and classify disability for administrative purposes, instances of prejudice and unfair treatment, the ways dis/ableism is embedded in ADM systems, and the various dynamics that put people with disability at a high risk of algorithmic harm. Then, workshop participants will engage in an interactive group activity. This will involve discussing strategies to ensure government bureaucracies are held accountable for algorithmic harms, as well as exploring methods to resist and reorient algorithmic systems toward the goals of disability justice. This event will be empowering and educational!

Featured speakers are:

• Michaela Chen, Researcher and Advocate, Foxglove UK
• Rick Burgess, Outreach, Development & Campaigns Lead, Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People
• Kevin De Liban, Director of Advocacy at Legal Aid of Arkansas
• Marie Johnson, Centre for Digital Business (Australia)
• Asher Wolf, information activist (Australia)

The workshop will be held on Thurs. 29 June, at 9:00-11:00 BST via zoom. The zoom link will be distributed closer to the event.

To book a place or if you have any questions, email the facilitator of the event Georgia Van Toorn g.vantoorn@unsw.edu.au

Watchdog receives hundreds of complaints over Telegraph’s ‘toxic’ benefits article

A press watchdog has received hundreds of complaints about a “toxic” article by the Daily Telegraph which asked its readers to calculate how much disabled people on out-of-work benefits were contributing to the country’s “tax burden”.

The Telegraph wrote that millions were claiming benefits “without ever having to look for work” and it produced an automatic calculator that allowed readers to discover “just how much of our hard-won salaries are spent on the benefits of those who do not work”.

More than 600 people have so far complained about the article to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), which is currently assessing the complaints.

Disabled campaigners warned this week that the news story, following a “hateful” Twitter post by Channel 5’s Jeremy Vine show last month, marks a return to “divisive” and “damaging” media coverage that incites hatred of disabled people.

Dr Jay Watts, a disabled activist and consultant clinical psychologist, drafted a letter to the Telegraph that has been signed by nearly 300 mental health professionals and describes the “distress” the “divisive” story has caused.

The letter says it is “troubling to observe the return of a divisive narrative last seen at the height of austerity politics, which is likely to lead to an increase in hate crimes and have a profound impact on psychological well-being and societal cohesion”.

It says: “The insinuation that benefit claimants are ‘lazy’ or ‘undeserving’, reminiscent of tropes seen in TV shows like ‘Benefits Street’, oversimplifies and misrepresents the realities of their lives.

“The level of shaming in the public sphere is now so bad that we as clinicians sometimes have to beg people in desperate need to apply for benefits so fearful are they of being seen as a burden.”

In a statement, Disability Rights UK (DR UK) – one of the organisations to complain to IPSO – said there had been “an increase in incitement of hatred against disabled people from some sections of our media”, including the Telegraph.

It said the aim of the article was “to vilify people who are too sick to work by angering those who are paying taxes that go towards disability benefits”, and it warned: “We must resist these toxic narratives that only lead to further abuse and vilification of disabled people.”

Kamran Mallick, DR UK’s chief executive, said: “Disability hate speech is totally abhorrent and must stop.

“We urge the Telegraph to cease their campaign against disabled people unable to work.”

The National Union of Journalists’ disabled members’ council also issued a statement, although it did not mention the Telegraph directly.

Natasha Hirst, a disabled journalist and recently elected president of the union, said: “Recent negative reporting on out of work sickness benefits has reinforced a damaging narrative that blames and punishes disabled people for situations that are not of their making.

“Disabled people are rightfully angry to be the target of inhumane and degrading rhetoric in print and broadcast media.

“Journalism is a crucial tool to scrutinise and hold those in power to account and there is no place for toxic reporting that undermines and further marginalises a significant proportion of the population.”

Asked if the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) shared the concerns of those who complained to IPSO that the Telegraph coverage was reinforcing a damaging narrative that blamed disabled people for situations that were not of their making and targeted them with “inhumane and degrading rhetoric”, a DWP spokesperson declined to comment.

Meanwhile, the same “Jeremy Vine on 5” Twitter account that asked last month if it was time to “crack down” on sick and disabled people on out-of-work benefits, has now asked if the increasing number of young adults who are not in work because of illness means they should be described as the “‘sick-note’ generation”.

The post again caused widespread anger among disabled people on social media, with activists describing it as “appalling”, “anti disabled” and an “attack on disabled people”.

It is 12 years since disabled activists demonstrated outside the central London offices of the Daily Mail to protest about that newspaper’s “disablist” and “defamatory” coverage of the government’s push to force people off incapacity benefits.

Lord Justice Leveson’s report into press standards later highlighted the “significant tendency” among newspapers to publish “prejudicial or pejorative” references to disabled people and other minorities.

Leveson included three examples of “misleading articles” on incapacity benefit reform, which he said were examples of the “harmful” practice in parts of the media of “prioritising the worldview of a title over the accuracy of a story”.

One of them was a Daily Telegraph news story.

Activists now believe the government is again using the media to scapegoat disabled people for the UK’s economic problems, and to try to distract the public from its own difficulties.

It comes only weeks after the minister for disabled people, Tom Pursglove, faced calls to resign after uploading a hostile and “dangerous” post about benefit fraud on social media that warned claimants his department would “track you down” and “bring you to justice”.

Following the spate of distressing media “messaging” about benefit claimants, the grassroots, user-led mental health group Recovery in the Bin (RiTB) put out a call for testimony of what life is like for DWP claimants.

Some of that testimony was published this week.

One claimant told RiTB: “I know that I only deserve to live if I’m employed, that’s the message.”

Another comment described how the impact of “DWP processes and their media has had a direct impact on my mental health to the degree that I would rate it worse than my illness, worse than being sectioned and forcibly medicated, worse than being stitched with no local anaesthetic, worse than surviving a suicide attempt”.

Several of those who contacted RiTB spoke of how they felt like a “burden” and “undeserving”, with one describing the disability benefits system as “a special kind of hell on earth designed to make us feel subhuman, which is what most people think we are”.

One claimant said that watching the Pursglove video had caused a “psychotic episode” and led to a police welfare check.

And one of those who responded to RiTB wrote: “I’ve attempted suicide, been paranoid and psychotic and detained under the [Mental Health Act].

“I think that there is more threat to my life from the benefits system than anything else.” 

One claimant told RiTB: “Am not on benefits anymore but I can still feel that fear.

“The recent video from the DWP brought it all back. The feeling of being watched, never knowing who or when. Being told by a support worker that I was worrying over nothing.

“Feeling like a fraud and doubting myself all the time. It was exhausting.”

DNS asked the Telegraph if it would correct at least one obvious inaccuracy in its article, whether it regretted its coverage, and if it would apologise in print and take action to ensure that further such articles are not published.

The Telegraph declined to answer those questions, but a spokesperson said that “more than 600 complaints have been referred to IPSO, we will await to hear from the regulator regarding the matter”.

8 June 2023

Government’s ‘unacceptable’ response hides winter blackout plans

The government is refusing to reveal any plans it had to protect disabled people who rely on life-saving medical equipment in their homes if there were power blackouts during the winter fuel crisis.

Even though the risk of power cuts is now over until next winter, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is refusing to say what action it was proposing to take if the threatened three-hour blackouts had taken place.

This means that there will be no opportunity to hold the government to account over the plans – and to push for improvements – ahead of next winter.

Disability News Service (DNS) has been trying for months to secure information from the government on how it proposed to protect those who rely on equipment in their homes such as ventilators and dialysis machines.

When DNS asked DHSC in November for those plans through a freedom of information request, it refused to release the documents because they related to “the formulation and development of government policy” and so engaged an exemption under the Freedom of Information Act.

It argued that the information related to “policy options not taken forward at that time which Ministers may choose to pursue in future” and therefore to “ongoing policy formulation and development” and so the public interest “lies in favour of withholding this information”.

DNS resubmitted the request after the winter finished and there was no longer the possibility of power blackouts.

But DHSC has refused again to release the information.

It is now arguing that “national-level power outages can occur at any time and from a range of causes not limited to winter” and so the information “continues to relate to ongoing policy formulation and development”.

It concludes: “We therefore consider that the public interest lies in favour of withholding this information.”

Baroness [Sal] Brinton, the disabled Liberal Democrat peer who has previously raised concerns about the lack of planning in the House of Lords, told DNS: “This is an extraordinary letter from the Department of Health and Social Care, which if taken literally would mean no information would ever be published again.

“Those people living with electrical appliances need to know how they would be protected in the event of large power supply failure.

“This response shows that yet again ministers just don’t care.”

Alan Benson, a leading disabled campaigner, particularly on accessible transport, relies on a collection of vital equipment at home, including a day-time and a night-time ventilator, two powered wheelchairs, and an electric hoist, while he also needs to stay warm for health reasons.

He said: “What I need from government is a plan on how I am protected in the event
of power-cuts, or at the very least reassurance that a plan exists that can be quickly activated.

“Instead I conclude from this response that plans are still being formulated.

“What’s worse is that these cuts are clearly still a real possibility. I feel less safe now than going into winter.

“As we push towards carbon free energy electricity, demand will continue to rise, increasing the risk of supply failure all year round.

“It’s unacceptable that disabled people are being hung out to dry. We need answers for our safety and sanity.”

Mark Baggley, manager of Choices and Rights Disability Coalition in Hull, who uses a ventilator at night while he’s sleeping, said: “I think it is disgraceful that the government are refusing to release the relevant documents and wonder what they are trying to hide, or is it simply [that] there is no plan?”

He is registered as a customer in a vulnerable situation with his electricity supplier, EDF, which referred him during the winter to advice from the Energy Networks Association which says customers in his position “should seek advice from their local health service provider”.

He told DNS: “It appears clear to me that the government has not thought about and probably doesn’t care [about] the effect any power cuts would have on disabled people in this situation.”

He said he had spoken to several people at the hospital he attends for treatment about his situation during the winter and they had “no clear solution”.

He said: “My ventilator has a two-hour battery backup and after that time, I wouldn’t be able to use it and would have to get up as I can’t sleep without it.”

Government departments have repeatedly referred to priority services registers, which are maintained by individual power companies, but the energy industry has been unable to explain what protection the registers would offer those who signed up, other than the usual “extra help, including advance notice of planned power cuts and priority support”.

The industry made clear that customers on the register would not be exempt from any blackouts, and that those who need a continuous supply of electricity for medical reasons “should seek advice from their local health service provider”.

8 June 2023

Report for Labour rules out early end to care charges

A report set to have a significant influence on Labour’s adult social care policy at the next general election has ruled out an immediate end to care charges in favour of a more gradual move towards “affordability”.

The report, launched this morning (Thursday) by the Fabian Society, was commissioned by the public service union UNISON after shadow health and social care secretary Wes Streeting asked the think tank to examine how to introduce a National Care Service in England.

As suggested in a draft version of the document leaked to Disability News Service in March, the report rules out an immediate end to care charging under a Labour government.

Instead, the union-commissioned report suggests that the priority for a new Labour government should be “addressing the immediate workforce crisis” by ensuring “sufficient, properly rewarded and well-trained staff”.

It concludes that, due to the “competing financial pressures facing the system”, charging reform “should not be the first priority for extra money” and should only be “progressed gradually alongside other changes”.

It adds: “The launch of a National Care Service should not mean immediately jumping to a position where most support is free at the point of need.”

The Fabian Society appears to have dropped the recommendation in the draft report that spending on social care should increase by at least six to seven per cent above inflation each year for 10 years.

Instead, it merely suggests that the government should make “a 10-year spending commitment to significantly raise expenditure in real terms every year, and commission independent advice on the amount needed”.

Today’s report also suggests that a new Labour government should take some “immediate steps” on charging reform, such as making all short-term care free or uprating means-testing thresholds.

But rather than offering an end to care charges, the report suggests that the National Care Service (NCS) should provide “services for everyone with support needs, regardless of their means, and affordable to all”.

It adds: “The central task for social care reform should be to ensure that the right support is available to everyone who needs it.

“Achieving fair and affordable care payments can follow.”

But despite painting a grim picture of social care in England, with local authorities being forced to ration care and support, and a £6.1 billion funding gap, there appears to be no mention in the report of the debt crisis facing disabled people who pay for social care in their own homes.

Research by disabled campaigners showed last year that tens of thousands of disabled people across the country every year were having debt collection action taken against them by their local authorities over unpaid care charges.

But instead of an immediate end to charging, today’s report suggests that “one or two” significant care charging reforms could coincide with the eventual launch of the National Care Service.

This might take place in the summer of 2028 – likely to be four years after an election – with the government then announcing a “timetable of further charging changes”.

Options for these initial reforms could include offering free care and support for all people who become disabled before the age of 25, or funding free support for people with “very significant support and clinical needs”.

It suggests that ministers should then “develop a timetable of further charging changes so that people will know that the affordability of support will improve over time”.

Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance was critical of the report’s failure to address the “inequity of social care charging” when the draft version was leaked to DNS, saying then that “charging for social care is regressive and is a tax on disability” and that a National Care Service “needs to be free at the point of use, like the NHS”.

Despite the likely frustration over its suggestions on charging, some proposals in today’s report could appeal to the disabled people’s movement.

It emphasises the importance of “choice and control” for disabled people who use care and support services so they have new rights to choose where they live, while the National Care Service (NCS) would be “rights based”.

It also says that co-production should be placed at the centre of the NCS, with a new co-production duty for ministers and an independent “scrutiny, evidence and engagement body” led by people who require support and carers.

And it calls for a new legal right to independent living, as laid out in article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The proposals are described as a “roadmap” towards a National Care Service, and the paper will feed into Labour’s policy review in the run-up to the general election.

At this morning’s launch, Streeting said he needed “to make it crystal clear that today’s report is not Labour party policy” and that the party’s general election manifesto would be “fully costed and fully funded”.

He said Labour “won’t be making any promises in our manifesto unless we are 100 per cent sure we can keep them”.

Streeting added: “People who receive and deliver care have been let down time and again by broken Tory promises. I’m not going to repeat their mistakes.”

He said Labour would be consulting with “care providers, care workers and, crucially, with care users” in “the coming months”.

He said: “I am committed to making sure that our policies are co-produced in partnership with them, people who are experts by experience, either of receiving care or of delivering care.”

One of the two authors of the report, Ben Cooper, is disabled, but the report’s acknowledgements section suggests there were few meetings held with other disabled people and disabled people’s organisations.

Party members approved a motion at last autumn’s Labour conference that called for a National Care Service that was co-produced with service-users, publicly funded, and free of charge.

Labour’s party conference in 2019 approved plans for a National Independent Living Service model for social care reform, devised by the disabled people’s movement and backed by Labour leader Keir Starmer during his Labour leadership campaign three years ago.

But Labour has since backed away from the idea of free social care, with the party’s shadow leader of the Commons, Thangam Debbonaire, telling female party members in 2021 that introducing free social care for disabled and older people would just “give the Tories a stick to beat Labour with”.

8 June 2023

DWP criticised in parliament for ‘hiding’ information on starvation death

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been criticised in parliament for its “serious” failure to provide crucial information to a statutory safeguarding review about a disabled man who starved to death after his benefits were wrongly removed.

Nottingham City Safeguarding Adults Board confirmed last month that DWP failed to share key documents from 2014 with the independent consultant who carried out the review into the 2018 death of Errol Graham.

His benefits had been stopped in October 2017 after he failed to attend a face-to-face work capability assessment.

Tuesday’s adjournment debate was secured by Labour’s Debbie Abrahams after Disability News Service (DNS) drew her attention to DWP’s actions.

Abrahams said the information in the 2014 assessment report “expressed in the clearest language that he would not be fit to work indefinitely”.

And she pointed out that the 2014 documents were also not shared with the inquest into Errol’s death.

Abrahams told MPs that Errol’s daughter-in-law, Alison Burton, had said that DWP’s behaviour raised “serious questions” about its honesty and transparency.

The MP also highlighted another DNS investigation which has previously revealed how key documents linking DWP to the deaths of multiple disabled claimants were not shared with the department’s own independent reviewers of the work capability assessment, Professor Malcolm Harrington and Dr Paul Litchfield.

She said: “Errol’s story is an example of the department’s failure to safeguard claimants, and subsequently to avoid any form of scrutiny or accountability.

“Any government who were confident in their policies would be open to scrutiny, but there is a pattern of avoidance by the department, including the refusal to provide various reports and data to the work and pensions committee, on which I sit.”

She added: “The seven Nolan principles of public life apply to us all – ministers and MPs.

“Two of them are openness and transparency, but unfortunately, those principles are absent from the minister’s department.”

Abrahams asked again for ministers to order an inquiry into “the scale and causes of the deaths of social security claimants”.

Nottingham South MP Lilian Greenwood, who was Errol Graham’s MP, criticised DWP for failing to share the information about his “shocking and disturbing” death.

She told MPs: “The purpose of a safeguarding adults review is not to hold an individual or organisation to account, but it is about agencies learning lessons to improve future practice.

“If tragedies such as Errol’s death are to be prevented in future, which I am sure is what we all want, surely all agencies must share the relevant information with the board.”

She read out a letter Errol had written before his death – but never sent – in which he explained to the person who was going to assess his fitness for work the depth of his mental distress and the poverty he was enduring.

Tom Pursglove, the minister for disabled people, claimed DWP had “co-operated fully and openly” with the safeguarding board on “this very sad case” and said that he was “incredibly moved and concerned” by what had happened to Errol Graham.

He claimed it was “simply not true” that “officials hid information from the board”, but he offered no explanation for why DWP shared information from earlier assessments with the safeguarding review but not documents from Errol’s most recent work capability assessment in 2014, just three years before DWP removed his benefits.

The 2014 documents showed he was experiencing significant mental distress, including active suicidal thoughts.

Those documents would have shown that Errol had explained that he could not cope with “unexpected changes” which left him feeling “under threat and upset”, and that he felt “anxiety and panic in new situations”, while a doctor who assessed him on behalf of DWP described his “active suicidal thoughts”, “very low mood” and how he was “hearing voices all the time”.

Pursglove told MPs that DWP had “no reason” to hide this information from the safeguarding review because it had shared other – earlier – documents, and that “the board had the information that it requested”.

DNS has previously shown how the information DWP shared with the safeguarding review failed to show the level of distress Errol was experiencing, which would have been clear from the 2014 reports.

Pursglove attempted to blame the safeguarding review for not being clearer in its request for information.

He also said it was “not our intention to set up an independent inquiry, but there are steps we have taken as a department to improve matters in relation to safeguarding”.

He highlighted the appointment of more than 30 advanced customer support senior leaders “to support colleagues when dealing with customers who may be vulnerable or at risk”; setting up a DWP “serious case panel”; adding an extra safeguarding stage when “vulnerable” claimants like Errol Graham fail to engage with DWP; and improving mental health training for staff.

Pursglove also confirmed that DWP had accepted the safeguarding review’s recommendation that it should work with the national network of safeguarding adults boards to produce a “protocol” that would ensure they alert each other to relevant cases.

8 June 2023

Evidence to inquiry exposes ‘inadequate’ consequences of transport discrimination

Disabled campaigners have exposed the widespread – and unpunished – discrimination that passengers face across the rail, bus and taxi sectors, in written evidence to an MPs’ inquiry.

Many of the concerns were focused on the rail sector, with evidence highlighting the distress caused by delays, significant access barriers, and the repeated failure to enforce breaches of the Equality Act.

The evidence is included in more than 60 written submissions to an ongoing inquiry by the Commons transport committee into accessible transport and the legal obligations of the transport industry.

In its submission, the disabled people’s organisation Transport for All described the “weak language, limited implementation, and inadequate legal consequences” of current legislation on accessible transport.

It said that disabled people faced “significant barriers on every mode of transport” and warned that regulators “do not have significant enough powers” to enforce legal obligations.

It particularly pointed to rail companies, which it said “flagrantly breach the Equality Act”.

Transport for All said the fines handed to those companies that breached the act were “insufficient to ensuring effective enforcement”, and it called for the penalty for discrimination to be “equal to the seriousness of the offence”.

Christiane Link, a disabled consultant, who has advised the transport industry on access for more than 20 years, told the committee in her written evidence that the key issue for disabled rail passengers was the unreliability of the assisted travel service.

She said these failures were a “health and safety issue and a significant barrier” for disabled people, some of whom are forced to try to disembark trains themselves, which has “severe safety implications”.

She said the rail industry should mirror the air travel sector, where airports must report to the regulator each time a passenger misses a flight because assistance was not provided on time.

Link said the Department for Transport (DfT) and the public “should have constant and transparent information about why failed assists are happening and where”.

And she said that “performative” actions by the rail industry such as lighting up stations in purple once a year or providing “sunflower buggies” should no longer receive public funding because they are “a smokescreen for poor service and a waste of taxpayers’ money”.

She also called for all new train carriages to provide level boarding.

Another disabled campaigner, Tony Jennings, co-founder of the Campaign for Level Boarding and co-chair of the Avanti accessibility panel, also spoke of the importance of only buying new rail carriages that offered level boarding.

He said: “The DfT need to specify low floored trains in future with a legislative deadline and rolling programme to modify platforms to the UK standard to deliver level boarding in a reasonable timescale.”

He said train companies should be “heavily fined” and risk losing their franchise if they fail to enforce access laws in areas such as the safety of ramps, booking wheelchair spaces and failing to provide passenger assistance.

Jennings said: “Disabled people are fed up with complaining when passenger assistance fails when nothing changes.

“Compensation or free tickets is pointless if lessons aren’t learnt and processes and [accessible travel policies] aren’t enforced.”

He added: “The government need to take equal access seriously, action and investment is needed now to deliver an inclusive railway that is fit for purpose.”

Accessible transport campaigner Doug Paulley submitted written evidence that covered buses, taxis, the rail sector, air travel and London Underground.

He warned that, despite the “23-year-old regulations on the physical accessibility of buses and coaches and accessibility obligations on drivers, mass noncompliance with the regulations has gone unnoticed and unenforced”.

He told the committee: “There is no meaningful mechanism for discriminated-against disabled people to challenge or enforce when providers fail to comply with our rights, or when enforcers and regulators fail to enforce them.

“Disabled people need and deserve statutory bodies to reliably and simply realise and enforce our rights to access buses and coaches.”

Paulley said the laws on the accessibility of taxis were “a mess, as are the regulatory and enforcement mechanisms”, which “let disabled people down, resulting in colossal distress and iniquity”.

And he said that rail station accessibility information systems were “not fit for purpose”, while the “drive for destaffing stations creates specific problems for disabled people, especially where the station is served by driver-only trains”.

The disabled people’s organisation Wheels for Wellbeing said complaints processes were often “inaccessible, time-consuming and rarely result in any significant change to practice or provision”.

It told the committee in its written evidence: “Disabled people are often fobbed off with paltry compensation such as a discounted or free train ticket for their next journey.

“Because legal action is so costly and time and energy consuming, few Disabled people are in a position to undertake it.”

The disabled women’s organisation WinVisible told the committee that inaccessibility and understaffing of transport was “a huge problem”.

It wrote: “Many of us can’t go where we want, when we want to or need to. We spend a lot of time worrying about journeys beforehand and arranging them. We have to allow extra time for the journeys themselves, and they are stressful.

“It is clear that the current legislation is not effective, neither is it being enforced by regulators.”

It told the committee that cuts to rail staff and asking them to carry out “multiple roles” would lead to them becoming “overworked, distracted and tired from long shifts” and would result in “more preventable deaths and injuries”.

Iain Stewart, the transport committee’s chair and a Conservative MP, said: “The huge amount of written evidence we received on accessible transport has made it clear that current legislation doesn’t do enough to support disabled people who need to safely use buses, trains or even pavements to get around and live their lives.

“Many people are denied the ability to travel as easily as they should and end up avoiding going out altogether, causing them to miss out on socialising and work opportunities.  

“The evidence has also shown the importance of our inquiry investigating legal obligations and enforcement of accessible transport legislation.

“Currently, the enforcement of accessibility rules and laws is inadequate, and passengers shouldn’t shoulder the expensive and stressful burden of bringing court action against operators when they are mistreated.” 

8 June 2023

Guidance ‘will boost confidence’ of employers who want to recruit disabled people

New guidance that stresses that employers are allowed to reserve jobs for disabled people should help narrow the disability employment gap, say the disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) that asked for the legal advice to be published.

Inclusion Barnet’s chief executive, Caroline Collier, realised there was a “genuine hole” in people’s knowledge of the law on recruiting disabled people, even among those who specialised in employment law.

She approached the independent employment advice and conciliation service Acas to ask if it would produce new guidance.

With support from Collier and Inclusion London’s Tracey Lazard, Acas has now produced new guidance for employers, which makes it clear that they can “specifically advertise for and recruit a disabled person without the risk of disability discrimination”.

Collier said the law that allows employers to treat disabled candidates more favourably by reserving roles for disabled people – under the Equality Act – could help narrow the disability employment gap, which still hovers at around 30 per cent.

She said Acas had been “really supportive” and the advice on the Acas website now “puts it beyond doubt” that any employer can make it clear that they wish to recruit a disabled person.

The guidance makes it clear that employers can also seek to recruit a disabled person with a specific impairment if there is a “genuine occupational requirement” for them to do so.

Collier said she hoped other DPOs will find the guidance useful, by giving them the confidence to reserve roles for disabled people, rather than “fudging it” by saying that lived experience was “desirable”.

And she praised Acas for being “responsive and ready to listen” on the issue.

She added: “With the current rate of employment for disabled people almost 30 per cent lower than it is for those who are non-disabled, we hope it will encourage many more employers to reserve roles in this way.”

The guidance was made possible through funding from City Bridge Trust.

Paul Hawkins, head of skills development at Attitude is Everything, which campaigns to improve access to music and other live events, said: “Attitude is Everything welcome this hugely important clarification from Acas.

“We know that one in five of the adult working-age population are disabled yet disabled people are underrepresented across the UK workforce.

“Our Beyond the Music project seeks to remove barriers for disabled people looking to work in the music and live events industry and we frequently find that employers are keen to have a fully representative workforce but worry that actively advertising for disabled talent may put them in breach of the Equality Act.

“We are extremely grateful to the teams at Inclusion Barnet and Inclusion London for working with Acas to clarify that the Equality Act does allow employers to reserve roles for disabled people.

“This gives us greater confidence when supporting employers to address the disability employment gap.”

Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, said: “We welcome the clarified guidance from Acas.

“They have made clear that you can specifically advertise for and recruit disabled people to any role, without the risk of disability discrimination and without the need to demonstrate that there is an occupational requirement for a disabled person.

“You can also treat a disabled person more favourably compared to a non-disabled person in the hiring process.

“This guidance gives organisations confidence that they can prioritise people with lived experience of disability for any job role, and is something that the government should be promoting and supporting, to reduce the disability employment gap and disability pay gap.”

Acas adviser Gary Wedderburn said: “Inclusion Barnet approached us after they identified a gap in publicly available online advice on what the Equality Act says about recruiting disabled people.  

“We worked with the charity to expand our existing advice in this area, which now includes practical workplace examples around how the law on disability discrimination applies when an employer wants to recruit someone.

“It’s important for recruiters to be aware that the Equality Act allows an employer to specifically advertise for a disabled person and a non-disabled job applicant cannot then claim disability discrimination.

“The law allows recruiters to treat a disabled person more favourably compared to a non-disabled person for any type of job role.

“However, if an employer wants to recruit a person with a specific disability then they would have to justify that there’s an occupational requirement for that specific disability in the role, otherwise a job applicant with a different disability could claim disability discrimination under the law.

“We were happy to update our advice in this area and I am pleased to hear that it has had a positive impact.”

This news story is part of an ongoing Disability News Service series that highlights the vital work of the UK’s disabled people’s organisations

8 June 2023

Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week

Health ministers are to recruit a new volunteer army for social care to ferry medical equipment and drugs to people’s homes in a bid to free up congested hospital wards. Volunteers will also be sent to, though not into, people’s homes to tackle loneliness and carry out shopping and other errands. Under the plan, members of the public will be able to sign up on the GoodSam app for roles such as “check in and chat”, which involves support over the phone for people struggling with loneliness: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jun/06/ministers-seek-volunteer-social-care-army-to-speed-up-hospital-discharges

Disabled children are being forced to go without electricity or heating because their families are being disproportionately harmed by the cost-of-living crisis, according to research by a children’s charity. The Childhood Trust said that the rising costs of energy bills and other inflation was affecting the families of disabled children even more than their mainstream counterparts: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jun/04/disabled-children-disproportionately-affected-uk-cost-of-living-crisis

Lincolnshire County Council has been ordered to apologise for failing to consult disability groups over a controversial active travel scheme. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman said the council had not complied with guidance over the removal of parking spaces in Louth. The council removed three accessible parking spaces in March last year as part of changes to make the town more accessible to cyclists and pedestrians. Two of the spaces were reinstated in August after an outcry: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-65778481

A council has been given a £6.3 million bailout for its special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services. Wokingham Borough Council applied for the government cash amid a predicted overspend caused by increased demand. The payment has been revealed in council papers, published ahead of an audit committee meeting. A report said the money would be spent on SEND facilities in mainstream schools so children would not have to travel such long distances: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-65820565

8 June 2023

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

DWP hands hundreds of millions more to firms linked to claimant deaths… but not Atos

The government has awarded five-year disability assessment contracts worth more than £560 million to the outsourcing giant Capita, on the same day that a safeguarding review linked the company to the death of a young disabled mum.

Last week, the safeguarding review into the death of Philippa Day in October 2019 found the actions of Capita had had a “profound impact” on the 27-year-old and caused her “debilitating anxiety”, thanks to systemic problems in the personal independence payment (PIP) assessment system.

A coroner later found that flaws in the PIP system – many of them due to Capita’s actions – were “the predominant factor and the only acute factor” that led to Philippa taking her own life.

Also on the same day, 25 May, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) raised concerns about two serious data protection breaches linked to Capita, one following a cyber-attack and the other relating to allegations that it left data unsecured online.

Capita also failed to meet DWP’s target for the proportion of assessment reports considered to be of an acceptable quality in November last year, more than nine years after it started providing PIP assessments.

Capita has also been linked previously to widespread reports of dishonesty by its healthcare professionals while assessing PIP claimants.

But despite the safeguarding review, the data protection concerns, missing its quality target, and the previous reports of dishonesty by its staff, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has awarded Capita two five-year contracts to carry out assessments of disabled people, one across Wales and the Midlands (£450 million), and the other in Northern Ireland (£110 million).

In each of five UK regions, private sector contractors will carry out both work capability assessments (WCAs) and assessments for PIP*, as well as assessments for other disability-related benefits, from 2024 to 2029.

The Wales and Midlands contract means Capita will continue to provide assessments in Nottingham, where Philippa Day lived.

The US company Maximus has been awarded the contract to carry out assessments in the north of England and Scotland, worth an estimated £650 million over five years, and it will work as a “delivery partner” to Capita in Wales and the Midlands, worth another £150 million.

Maximus has also been linked to the deaths of disabled claimants, including Jodey Whiting, Alan McArdle and Philip Pakree, through its provision of work capability assessments (WCAs) since 2015 and its actions as a Work Programme contractor.

The fourth contract has been awarded to Ingeus, which provides employment, skills and health services in the UK and has so far not been associated with the provision of benefit assessments in this country, although it is part of the Australian multinational APM Group which delivers assessments in Australia.

This contract, across south-east England, London and East Anglia, is worth £400 million over five years.

So far, no contracts have been awarded to the discredited outsourcing company Atos, although one assessment contract – covering the south-west of England – has yet to be awarded.

Atos has an even worse reputation than Capita and Maximus, having earned more than £465 million from delivering work capability assessments 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 Disability News Service (DNS) investigation.

In all, the five assessment contracts will be worth more than two billion pounds over the five years from 2024 to 2029.

Announcing the award of the four contracts, Tom Pursglove, the minister for disabled people, said: “These important new contracts have been subject to a rigorous and competitive process in line with public contract regulations.”

DWP said the bids were assessed on a combination of quality and pricing.

But a DWP spokesperson declined to answer questions about the process, including whether Pursglove was comfortable awarding contracts to Capita and Maximus in the light of their respective track records.

The wider failings of Atos, Capita and Maximus have been exposed through research and direct action by grassroots groups of disabled people, inquiries by parliamentary committees, concerns raised by individual MPs, the release of government statistics, television documentaries, and the lengthy DNS investigation into the PIP assessment practices of Atos and Capita.

Performance figures released to DNS in January showed that all three current providers are continuing to provide a significant number of sub-standard assessment reports.

Independent audits carried out on behalf of DWP show that less than 80 per cent of WCA reports carried out by Maximus “fully conformed” to “professional standards” between September and November 2022, with the figure falling below 78 per cent in November 2022.

With Capita, nearly one in four (24.4 per cent) PIP assessment reports sampled in November 2022 were found to need amendments because of significant flaws, with another 3.3 per cent said to be of “unacceptable” quality, breaching DWP’s three per cent target.

Asked if it believed it was a suitable organisation to be providing assessment services to disabled people, a Maximus spokesperson said: “We are pleased to be continuing our partnership with DWP to deliver health and disability assessments.

“Through our delivery of the [WCA] since 2015, we have delivered significantly reduced waiting times, improved assessment quality and achieved record customer satisfaction.

“We remain committed to providing a sensitive, respectful and expert service to customers, working with disabled people and their representative groups to deliver improved customer experience.”

Neither Capita nor Atos had responded to questions by noon today (Thursday).

*Except in Scotland, where the Scottish government will continue to take responsibility for adult disability payment, its replacement for PIP

1 June 2023

Review finds multiple agencies failed over Whorlton Hall abuse scandal

Multiple agencies have been criticised by a long-awaited review for failing to expose a regime of physical and psychological abuse at a private hospital for autistic people and people with learning difficulties.

The abuse at Whorlton Hall, near Barnard Castle, County Durham, was only halted after the regime was exposed by undercover footage that featured in a BBC Panorama documentary broadcast on 22 May 2019.

A delayed safeguarding adults review has now described how failings by multiple agencies, including the Care Quality Commission (CQC), Durham County Council adult and health services and Durham police prevented the abuse being halted earlier.

Although the review only focused on a 16-month period between February 2018 and May 2019, concerns about standards at Whorlton Hall were first uncovered by CQC in 2015.

The review found there was “insufficient multi-agency working” when safeguarding inquiries were carried out in subsequent years.

When police investigations decided there was not enough evidence for further action, this was wrongly taken by the county council “as evidence that there were no safeguarding concerns or need for protection”.

The review also found that coordination between the council and CQC was “poor”.

The review concludes that if the Panorama documentary had not been broadcast, the council would probably have continued its series of “repetitive stop-start” responses to safeguarding concerns at Whorlton Hall, which had been occurring since at least 2016.

The 87-page review is also critical of some of the health bodies and local authorities that had secured places at Whorlton Hall for disabled people from other parts of the country.

The safeguarding report makes it clear that its conclusions do not reflect any changes or developments that have taken place since April 2022, when its findings were agreed by Durham Safeguarding Adults Partnership (DSAP), which commissioned the report.

The report’s publication was delayed by more than a year by a police investigation and criminal trial.

The review makes seven key “systemic” findings, including the need for closer working between CQC and local authorities on safeguarding inquiries at specialist hospitals.

It also highlights the lack of national standards for provider-led safeguarding investigations into the kind of “toxic, intimidating sub-cultures” seen at Whorlton Hall, which closed in May 2019.

It points to the need for disabled people in specialist hospital settings to have a named, independent professional with whom they can develop a “sustained relationship of trust”.

It also points to the “illusion of advocacy provision” for autistic people and those with learning difficulties who are inpatients in specialist mental health hospitals, which it says is “inadequate” and creates “a false security that advocacy is in place”.

And it says that the absence of national oversight of urgent hospital closures following care scandals means there is “little learning about what is working well and what needs to improve”.

It also criticises the lack of a “clear national approach” that will translate into “real change” for autistic people and those with learning difficulties in specialist hospitals.

The first concerns about Whorlton Hall appear to have been raised in 2015, when a CQC inspection rated it as “requires improvement”. But CQC failed to publish the report, a decision a review for the watchdog later concluded was wrong.

A CQC inspection in early 2018, following whistleblowing concerns, raised some concerns, including about an over-use of restraint, but it failed to carry out a “rigorous investigation” of the so-called “alpha group” of staff, whose members were at the centre of allegations of bullying, cover-up and abuse. CQC also failed to inform the council about the allegations.

There was then a botched investigation by Durham police, and a “misguided” decision by the council to allow The Danshell Group – which owned the hospital until 2018 – to carry out an internal investigation rather than carrying out a statutory safeguarding inquiry itself.

The council’s repeated failure to fully implement the “spirit” of Care Act safeguarding guidance caused “missed opportunities to focus on hearing the voice of people living at Whorlton Hall” and “created particular risks for the people identified as making and retracting allegations of abuse”, the review found.

This also meant that “significant levels of trust were placed in Whorlton Hall management to report accurately on events, evidence and judgements”.

The review draws attention to a “postcode lottery” of service provision that leads to “patients being placed for long periods in large hospitals that claim to be specialist, often at a distance from their family, [which] provides an opportunity for abuse to occur”.

And it is critical of Cygnet Health Care, which took over Whorlton Hall in August 2018, but refused to share the findings of its internal investigation into the abuse or information it had obtained when it bought the hospital from Danshell.

The review was completed in April 2022 but not published until now because of the ongoing trial of nine former Whorlton Hall staff members.

The trial ended in April, with five former members of staff cleared of all charges, but four others found guilty of ill-treating patients. They will be sentenced next month.

1 June 2023

Regulator tells government’s access advisers to act on unlawful secrecy

The government’s accessible transport advisers have been told by a regulator that they have been behaving unlawfully for years by failing to publish controversial reports, minutes of key meetings and letters they have exchanged with ministers.

Campaigners believe the Department for Transport (DfT) is behind the failure of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) to meet its legal freedom of information duties.

They believe DfT has prevented DPTAC releasing key documents that would show what action ministers are taking to improve accessible transport, and the advice the committee is giving the government over its repeated and serious failings.

The Association of British Commuters (ABC) had complained to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about DPTAC’s “flagrant” unlawful actions, which were probably a result of government pressure.

ABC lodged the complaint after DPTAC failed to implement the pledge made in May 2022 by its previous chair, Keith Richards, to improve the committee’s transparency, a decision that was supported by the committee.

Richards resigned from the role soon after making the pledge.

But DPTAC’s new chair, Matthew Campbell-Hill, has questioned whether it is right to release research that exposes the discrimination faced by disabled passengers.

In an interview with Disability News Service soon after his appointment, he also said that deciding whether DPTAC would do more to release its research reports and letters to ministers was not high on his list of priorities.

ABC also highlighted the urgency of the issue because of the expansion of DPTAC’s role.

It told ICO that this role had “greatly expanded” in the last five years and that it now provided advice to DfT ministers; DfT civil servants; the regulator, the Office of Rail and Road; and Great British Railways, the new over-arching body that will run the rail system.

DPTAC also liaises with the transport industry, charities, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).

ABC found that DPTAC has published just 17 documents online in the last 12 years.

This contrasted with DPTAC’s equivalent body in Scotland, the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland, which regularly publishes consultation responses, minutes, reports, strategic plans and formal letters.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, public bodies like DPTAC must introduce a wide-ranging publication scheme, which describes the information they will publish “proactively”.

But DTAC has no such scheme, and it has kept key documents secret for years, including letters and reports in which it has criticised the Department for Transport’s access failings.

Much of that information has only become known after it was released in response to freedom of information requests from ABC.

In the complaint to ICO, ABC’s co-founder, Emily Yates, pointed the regulator towards a string of controversial documents she secured through such requests, including letters to ministers, DPTAC responses to government consultations, and the committee’s own reports.

Among those documents was DPTAC’s draft Rail Workforce Reform report, which found that staffing levels on a section of the rail network were “completely inadequate to deliver an accessible railway”.

Another was DPTAC’s response to a consultation on the government’s plans for the railways over the next three decades, which the committee said displayed a “poverty of ambition” on accessibility.

ABC also secured an April 2019 DPTAC letter which showed the committee had told ministers they were falling “a very long way short” with their plans to ease the “toxic” impact on disabled people of running driver-only trains through unstaffed stations.

In the complaint to ICO, Yates said DfT’s legal department had been overseeing DPTAC’s freedom of information practices since late 2018, and there was “strong evidence to suggest DPTAC is denied control over publishing decisions”.

ABC provided the regulator with evidence showing selected members of DPTAC involved in rail reform had been told to sign non-disclosure agreements, which meant it had not been able to discuss rail accessibility properly as a committee since 2019, in breach of its legal duties.

Yates said in her complaint: “After five years lobbying the DfT and DPTAC for transparency on accessibility issues, we have exhausted every avenue for change.

“Yet the stakes have never been higher, in the context of rail reform, budget cuts, and pending legislative change under Great British Railways.”

Now ICO has accepted ABC’s concerns and has told DPTAC it needs to “proactively implement an appropriate publication scheme, made easily available to the public”.

Yates told Disability News Service yesterday (Wednesday): “The DPTAC publications featured in our ICO report are the most important documents on transport accessibility in the UK today, leading to multiple EHRC and parliamentary interventions over the last five years.

“Yet these documents – and even the committee itself – do not officially ‘exist’ to the public.

“DPTAC’s breach of its transparency duties is now so severe that it can only be seen as the exclusion of disabled people and their issues from political and cultural life.”

Asked to confirm that it will ensure DPTAC now produces a publication scheme, and if it would apologise and confirm that it was responsible for DPTAC’s failings in this area, a DfT spokesperson said: “The department and DPTAC remain committed to supporting the transport needs of disabled people.

“We have received correspondence from the Information Commissioner’s Office and will respond in due course.”

1 June 2023

Government breaks pledge to consult on improvements to housing adaptations

The government has refused to explain why it has not met its pledge to consult on three planned improvements to the scheme that funds disabled people to make access improvements to their homes.

The People at the Heart of Care white paper, described as the government’s “10-year vision for adult social care” in England, promised in December 2021 to consult on the three improvements to the disabled facilities grant (DFG) scheme “in 2022”.

But none of those consultations have yet been launched, 18 months after the white paper was published.

One pledge was to increase the upper limit for a DFG for an individual adaptation, currently set at £30,000 in England – although councils can increase this on a case-by-case basis – which will mean “that more people who need the grant across the country will be able to access it”.

An independent review of DFGs, commissioned by the government, recommended an increase to the upper limit in December 2018.

Another pledge was to simplify the means test underpinning the DFG system, which the government said was “complex and can be difficult to navigate”.

And the third was to examine how DFG funding is allocated to local authorities to “help ensure better alignment with local demand so that more adaptations reach those who need them most”.

Consultations on all three were supposed to take place in 2022, but none of them have yet been launched by the government.

The white paper also included plans to fund a new service to make minor repairs and changes in disabled people’s homes to “help them stay safe and independent and reduce demand for more substantial adaptations through the DFG”.

The four proposals were described in the white paper as “the next important steps towards our 10 year vision for transforming the role that housing plays in adult social care”.

The government has increased funding for DFGs from £220 million in 2015-16 to £505 million in 2019-20 and £573 million in 2022-23, although the 2018 review pointed to concerns that local authority contributions towards DFGs had fallen and so the number of homes adapted had not significantly increased.

In April this year, the government announced another £102 million in funding over two years.

In response last week to a written question from Labour’s Imran Hussain about the consultation on increasing the upper DFG limit, care minister Helen Whately said only that the government would “continue to keep the upper limit under review”.

She added: “Local areas also already have discretion to increase the cap on the grant on a case-by-case basis or in line with a locally published housing assistance policy.”

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) refused to explain why it had failed to launch the three consultations, although it said the government would continue to keep the upper limit, funding allocation and means test under review.

It also failed to comment on progress on the minor repairs service.

But a DHSC spokesperson said: “Providing high quality, safe, and suitable homes remains central to our vision for the adult social care system. 

“Suitable housing can help people stay independent and healthy for longer and reduces their need to draw on care and support.

“As part of our social care reforms, we are continuing to provide funding to support people to remain independent at home.

“In addition to the £573 million invested annually in the disabled facilities grant, we are making £102 million of new money available for local housing authorities to increase their funding for home improvement services.” 

1 June 2023

Broadcaster’s silence over ‘rabblerouser’ tweet on disability benefits

The broadcaster Jeremy Vine is facing angry calls for a personal apology after a member of his team published a social media post in his name that asked if it was time to “crack down” on sick and disabled people on out-of-work benefits.

The post on Twitter – which has since been deleted – even asked if such payments should be stopped.

It was the latest example of politicians and the media scapegoating disabled people for the country’s economic struggles.

And it echoes years of similar comments across the media and politics that have been blamed for driving an increase in disability hate crime.

The post from the “Jeremy Vine on 5” account – linked to his Channel 5 daytime discussion programme – said: “Is it time to crack down on jobless benefits?

“Nearly four million people in the UK are being supported by the state without ever having to look for a job.

“That’s because they’ve been deemed too sick to work. Is it wrong for taxpayers to fund them indefinitely?”

The post drew an immediate response from disabled campaigners, accusing the broadcaster of disablism, “trolling” and “demonising” sick and disabled people, and of being a “rabblerouser”.

Soon after Disability News Service asked Channel 5 if Vine would apologise for the tweet, it was deleted.

The post came two weeks after a safeguarding review criticised the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for failings that contributed to the death of Errol Graham, a disabled man from Nottingham who starved to death after it wrongly stopped his out-of-work benefits*.

In April, Tom Pursglove, the minister for disabled people, posted a “hostile” video on social media suggesting disability benefit fraud was a serious problem, even though his own department released figures just weeks later showing only a tiny proportion of spending was paid out to fraudulent claims.

Rick Burgess, campaigns lead at Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, said: “It is no accident that as the government plans to cut support for disabled people, the media again regurgitate hateful smears that demonise disabled people.

“This was not journalism, it was populist rhetoric to excite a baying mob.

“Jeremy Vine needs to apologise and do extensive work to make this right; simply deleting the tweet does nothing.”

Black Triangle, which was launched 13 years ago to defend disabled people from similar attacks, also condemned the tweet.

John McArdle, co-founder of Black Triangle, accused the programme of “defaming” and “scapegoating” disabled people and called on Vine to retract the statement.

He said the return of the narrative that disabled people were a “burden on the economy” was “unbelievable” and “exhausting”, and he called on the Labour opposition to end its silence on such attacks.

Paula Peters, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts, said: “For 13 years, disabled people have endured hateful rhetoric from the government and mainstream media; we’ve been called scroungers, fraudsters and a lot worse.”

She said this had contributed to reports of disability hate crime to police doubling in just four years.

Speaking before the tweet was removed, she said that it “shows the vile rhetoric towards disabled people is still very much prevalent among the mainstream media, which continues to cause considerable distress to disabled people today.  

“The offensive tweet should be removed without delay and Jeremy Vine should immediately apologise to disabled people for the distress [the] vile remarks have caused.”

Tori, founder of Ehlers-Danlos Teesside, and another disabled campaigner who saw the tweet, said that “ramping up the anti-welfare rhetoric” by the media “sets a dangerous precedent to allow people to question disabled and chronically ill people’s validity”.

She said that allowing the media to portray such a line of questioning as “legitimate debate” was “abhorrent” in a society where the government has “already overseen the active persecution of not only disabled but actual dying human beings, where suicide rates are skyrocketing”.

Tori said such rhetoric “encourages ableism and in turn eugenics”.

Vine has so far failed to comment, apologise for the tweet put out under his name, or say what action he will take to ensure that such posts are not repeated.

Channel 5 has also failed to explain how the tweet was posted, what action it will take to avoid a repetition, and whether it understands the depth of anger about the post.

In a statement that appeared to repeat the disablism of the original tweet, a spokesperson for Channel 5 said: “The issue of benefits was front page news that morning after reports that millions of people were receiving benefits without ever having to look for work following a surge in claims of mental health issues and joint pain during lockdown.”

She said the tweet had been removed as it “could have been misconstrued, so [Channel 5] would like to apologise to anyone offended”.

She said the issue was eventually covered by a fellow presenter, Alexis Conran – whose programme comes under the “Jeremy Vine on 5” umbrella – and not by Vine, with what she said was a “fair and balanced” debate.

And she said the tweet had not come from Vine’s personal Twitter account.

Tori said Channel 5’s response was “absolutely ridiculous”.

She said: “It’s infuriating because you’ve got the government putting out videos of a minister in a fake police uniform with DWP on it and then you’ve got ableds discussing disabled people as if they are disposable and contribute nothing to society.

“Debating it is not OK. We’re living through a pandemic which is creating more disabled people.”

She said the amount of unclaimed benefits was “significantly larger” than the amount lost due to benefit fraud.

She said: “Why don’t they talk about that? It’s absolutely vile what they are doing.”

*Labour’s Debbie Abrahams has secured a parliamentary adjournment debate on Tuesday (6 June) into the safeguarding review and evidence secured by Disability News Service that DWP hid vital evidence from the review

1 June 2023

Met’s mental health emergency warning ‘risks creating serious harm’

A warning from the Metropolitan police that it will stop responding to many mental health-related emergency calls within three months has sparked serious concern among campaigners.

The warning came in a letter sent on 24 May to health and social care services across London by Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley.

He said his officers were spending 10,000 hours a month dealing with mental health-related issues such as waiting to hand patients into medical care.

In his letter, first reported by the Guardian, Rowley said the situation was “untenable” and that he had told his team that the force would “withdraw from health related calls by no later than 31 August”.

The force will instead introduce the Right Care, Right Person scheme (RCRP), which is backed by the government.

The scheme was first tested by Humberside police and is now being introduced by other forces.

Under the scheme, police refuse to respond to concerns about a person’s mental health unless there is a threat to life or a risk of significant harm.

In other cases, support must be provided by health or social care agencies.

Mary Sadid, policy manager for National Survivor User Network (NSUN), a network of groups and people with experience of mental distress, said Rowley’s letter reflected the level of underfunding of mental health services, but she warned that his warning to remove emergency responses in many situations risked causing further “serious harm”.

She said: “We know that police involvement in mental health emergencies can result in criminalisation, punishment and deaths.

“The system is not fit for purpose, and police involvement and its punitive or fatal consequences are a symptom of a deeply cruel and broken system.”

But Sadid said NSUN did not think that health and social care services would be able to introduce plans to fill the gaps left by the police by 31 August.

She said: “We are deeply concerned about the state of mental health emergency response and crisis care.

“The latest announcements reflect the reality of dangerous underfunding and understaffing as well as a deep lack of care and compassion when responding to people in crisis. 

“We do not believe that police are the appropriate first responders for people in crisis, but we also do not see adequate alternatives being put forward.”

She added: “The number of mental health beds available has fallen by over 50 per cent since 2000.

“Community services, including grassroots groups, have been decimated by austerity policy.

“People are also being pushed to the brink by a punishing and ableist welfare system.

“In this context, the withdrawal of emergency response risks creating further serious harm.

“We need a response proportionate to the risk people continue to face that values the lives and dignity of the people affected.” 

Professor Peter Beresford, co-chair of the disabled people’s and service-user organisation Shaping Our Lives and himself a long-term user of mental health services, said his posts on social media about Rowley’s letter had drawn a “massive response” which was “mostly fearful”.

Many of the responses highlighted that the need for police involvement in such emergencies showed the “inadequacy of mental health services”, which was “seen as getting worse and relates to the defunding and low priority of mental health policy and services”.

But he said there had also been a recognition that the police were facing cuts themselves and had inadequate officers “for all the tasks they are expected to take on”. 

Beresford said there were comments about both positive and “problematic” treatment from police in such situations, as well as concerns at how some mental health services have responded.

He said: “Clearly mental health policy and provision is in long term crisis.

“If nothing is done about this by government, the police withdrawal from responsibility can only make things worse.

“The government must act on this and other matters with urgency and implement mental health reform, increasing support and funding to make it possible.”

Dr Adrian James, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, expressed sympathy with the Met at their “challenges”, but said that he and his colleagues were “surprised and concerned by the unilateral declaration by Sir Mark Rowley to withdraw the police from attending emergency related mental health incidents”.

He said: “It is simply unhelpful and impractical to make decisions like these before we have worked out what will happen in some very concerning situations, both for patients with mental illness, but also for the public and police officers alike.”

Rowley said police officers across all forces were spending nearly one million hours a year with mental health patients in hospitals waiting for them to be assessed, which was time which “could have been spent conducting the initial attendance at 500,000 domestic abuse incidents or 600,000 burglaries”.

In a statement, the Met police said its officers were “not trained to deliver mental health care and spend an average of 10 hours with a patient when they are sectioned under the Mental Health Act”.

Despite government “attention and support” and increased health spending, the Met said that “in the interests of patients and the public, we urgently need to redress the imbalance of responsibility, where police officers are left delivering health responsibilities”.

It added: “Health services must take primacy for caring for the mentally ill, allowing officers to focus on their core responsibilities to prevent and detect crime, and keep communities safe and support victims.”

1 June 2023

Call for direct action protests to build support for ‘radical’ social care reform

A disabled activist has called for a new campaign of direct action to build public support for a “radical overhauling” of the social care system.

Ellen Clifford, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts and author of The War on Disabled People, said disabled activists and users of social care needed to “start putting our messages and our demands out there”.

She said campaigners needed to learn from the achievements of disabled anti-cuts activists through their campaign of direct action over welfare reform changes.

Clifford was taking part in an online event hosted by Policy Press, part of a series on developing “participatory, inclusive and sustainable” public and social policy.

She said it had been difficult to engage those in positions of power with the National Independent Living Support Service proposals produced by the disabled people’s movement.

She said this was because it was “not in the interests of any parties that control local councils” to get rid of the current system, which relies on outsourcing and privatisation.

She said: “We do need to look to build public support and to put pressure on those politicians from outside.”

In response to a question from Disability News Service, Clifford said she did not think the Labour party would move towards supporting an end to social care charges until activists have “made space for them to do that by changing public opinion”.

Donald O’Neal, an adult social care user for more than 35 years, and author of The Lack of Care Act 2014, said he believed Labour was “not interested in making social care free because they feel they have won the race already”.

He said: “I think if they were put in a position where they thought they were going to lose a lot of votes then they might want to change their mind.

“Labour have just said time and again they are the party of the working people and beyond that they don’t really care because they feel that is enough votes to win an election.”

The Secret Welfare Rights Worker, who was taking part anonymously and has worked previously in the social care system and now provides welfare rights advice to older and disabled people, said: “We somehow have to convince [Labour] that it will be popular if changes are made and then they will have the guts to go forward because they are gutless and they won’t want to go forward unless they think it’s going to be OK for them.

“Somehow we have to engage people and encourage people to see that these are issues that affect all of us and we all might need social care and we all might need benefits, and nobody is safe from that.”

O’Neal said earlier in the event that he believed the way to highlight the need for reform was to enlist the support of celebrities with connections to social care and use social media to “embarrass the government”.

He said: “It sounds idiotic… but unfortunately this is the way our society works.

“We’ve tried co-production, we’ve tried working in partnership, we’ve tried other buzzword methods and they just have not worked.”

He added: “I’m not a fan of co-production. They are happy to work with you as long as you say what they want to hear. Co-production is just greenwash.

“I do believe that every local authority ought to have a user-led organisation that is there to run the local authority adult social care service [and] to provide other things such as advocacy.”

Dr Sally Witcher, disabled author of Inclusive Equality, and a freelance consultant and former chief executive of Inclusion Scotland, said the experience of social care reform in Scotland under the SNP showed it was “not enough to have a good vision for social care, declared political support for human rights and independent living, acceptance of the importance of involving end-users in policy development, and doing that increasingly well.

“It’s not enough to have a manifesto commitment to remove social care charges or multiple stakeholder advisory groups, some of them chaired by ministers, and it isn’t enough to have legislative action to create a National Care Service and remove the postcode lottery.

“Right now, despite all of the above happening, outcomes for people in Scotland who are using or needing social care support are no better, I would say, and possibly even worse than before.”

She said disabled people’s social care outcomes have been negatively impacted by the Covid pandemic and Brexit-related staff shortages, with “entrenched power struggles between local and national government” and between healthcare and social care due to integration of the two systems, all “compounded by the current attempts to legislate for a National Care Service”.

She said the “dysfunctional system” meant that “good quality conversations about personal outcomes” had “hit against financial realities” and a “vastly complex bureaucratic system” with “little if any transparency”.

She compared social care reforms with social security reforms in Scotland which have also involved “innovative participatory approaches” but have “translated and worked well and are now delivering improved services”.

The event yesterday (Wednesday) was chaired by Professor Peter Beresford, co-chair of Shaping Our Lives, who said social care “feels like the policy that politicians want to forget”.

He said the present government had “made a habit” of overlooking and ignoring social care, “repeatedly promising reform and never quite getting round to it”.

He stressed the importance of grassroots engagement and said that “people engaging with each other” is “absolutely critical”.

Richard Humphries, author of Ending the Social Care Crisis, a senior policy advisor to the Health Foundation and a former director of social services, stressed the importance of a “long-term approach” to social care reform, and securing public support for the significant investment that was needed so as to “make that politically possible for whoever forms the next government”.

He said: “Reform will not work without the active engagement of people with lived experience, who should very much be driving the changes.”

Clifford added: “Disabled people, our organisations, people who use social care services, absolutely have to be involved in designing and co-producing what we would seek to replace the current system with.”

1 June 2023

Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week

The depth of suffering in care homes in England as Covid hit has been laid bare in a court case exposing “degrading” treatment with residents being “catastrophically let down”. Care levels at the Temple Court care home in Kettering collapsed so badly in April 2020, when ministers rushed to free up NHS capacity by discharging thousands of people, that residents were left lying in their own faeces, dehydrated, malnourished and suffering necrotic, infected wounds, the Care Quality Commission found: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/may/29/cqc-case-reveals-degrading-conditions-in-england-care-home-as-covid-hit

Disabled people are paying “a tax on disability” by being forced to fund soaring care charges out of their benefits as the cost-of-living pushes care users into financial crisis. Charities and disabled people’s organisations, including Inclusion London, WinVisible, Scope and Mencap, told the Observer that disabled care users are being pushed into severe financial hardship, with some forced to go without essential home care because they can’t afford the fees. Others face up to £20,000 of arrears to their local authority, with some seeing bailiffs called in over care fee debts: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/may/28/tax-on-disability-rising-uk-social-care-costs-debt

A man with cerebral palsy who was told not to “play the disability card” in his job at Home Bargains has received £25,000 after alleging discrimination. Ryan Walker, who worked as a sales assistant at its Armagh shop, took the case after his duties were changed. He had informed the firm that he needed to be physically active to manage his disability but he was later moved from stacking shelves to working on tills. Home Bargains settled the case without admitting liability: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-65770209

1 June 2023

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Disabled mum took her own life after actions of DWP and Capita ‘magnified’ anxiety

A young disabled mother who took her own life had been left with stress and “debilitating anxiety” by the actions of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and its contractor Capita, an inquiry has found.

A safeguarding adults review into the death of Philippa Day in October 2019 describes today (Thursday) how the actions of DWP and Capita had a “profound impact” on the 27-year-old, from Nottingham.

She received a high level of support from her family, and from local agencies, but the “stress” she experienced over her finances became “magnified” when she voluntarily applied for personal independence payment (PIP), the disability benefit introduced in 2013 to gradually replace working-age disability living allowance (DLA).

The review builds on evidence heard at an inquest into Philippa’s death, which found in January 2021 that flaws in the disability benefits system were “the predominant factor and the only acute factor” that led to her taking her own life, and highlighted 28 separate “problems” with the administration of the PIP system.

Philippa was described by her family as a “vibrant, bubbly person who once met, would not be forgotten”, and someone who was caring and had a “deep love” for her child.

She had a diagnosis of emotionally unstable personality disorder, as well as type one diabetes, had a long history of self-harm and suicidal behaviours, and used substances and alcohol as an unsuccessful coping mechanism.

She had high levels of anxiety and agoraphobia, and could become quickly overwhelmed by day-to-day stresses of life.

The safeguarding review, commissioned by Nottingham City Safeguarding Adults Board, says that the interactions that Philippa – referred to as “Valentina” in the report – had with DWP and Capita as she tried to move from DLA to PIP had had a “profound impact” on her.

It highlights the stress caused by the high interest loans she had to take out when DWP stopped her DLA claim because the completed PIP form she posted went missing, and says it “significantly increased her episodes of self-harm and the risk of suicide”.

After her DLA award was eventually reinstated and backdated, Capita then insisted that Philippa had to attend a face-to-face appointment at one of its PIP assessment centres, even though it had access to substantial evidence of her mental distress and her need to be assessed at her home in Nottingham.

The review points to Philippa’s “sense of impotency that she could not affect change and that her mental distress was not recognised” and the “debilitating anxiety at the prospect of leaving her house to be assessed by unfamiliar professionals but untenable consequences if she declined”.

DWP recognised that it “may not have considered the impact of [Philippa’s] disability on her ability to engage with the assessment process”, says the review, which was delayed by legal action and the pandemic.

Her family told the review that some DWP staff “were flexible and compassionate in their responses, trying to work round systems and find ways to help”, but that “this was the exception”.

Philippa had “experienced a DWP system that felt rigid and dismissive of her” and “felt powerless and had no way of proving that she had returned her claim forms and the supporting medical evidence”, the review says.

There is praise in the review for Philippa’s community psychiatric nurse (CPN), who tried to convey to DWP and Capita staff a “wealth of knowledge” about Philippa’s “needs and risks”, and who was “tenacious” in her attempts to advocate for her.

The CPN told the review that navigating through the DWP benefits system had been “a daunting and exhausting process”.

The review also describes how Philippa had been subjected to “unrelenting” abuse at the hands of her former partner, referred to as “Dave”, and how she felt let down by the criminal justice system for its failure to stop the stalking, harassment and threats he inflicted on her.

This continuing abuse and harassment – which also included physical and sexual assaults in her home – had a significant impact on Philippa’s mental health, says the review.

The review details the “significant missed opportunity” for different agencies to build a picture of all the known incidents of abuse, which might have led to Dave facing more serious criminal offences and longer prison sentences.

It is the second time in a fortnight that DWP has been criticised by a Nottingham safeguarding adults review following the death of a disabled person linked to DWP’s actions.

Last week, DWP was accused by a relative of “absolutely disgraceful” behaviour after confirmation that it hid vital evidence from a safeguarding review published earlier this month into the death of Errol Graham, who starved to death in 2018 after his benefits were wrongly stopped.

Today’s review – written by the same consultant, Sylvia Manson – repeats a key recommendation from the Errol Graham review, calling on DWP to work with the national network of safeguarding adults boards to produce a “protocol” that would ensure they alert each other to relevant cases.

The recommendations also include calls for local and national action on domestic abuse, including a plea to improve the effectiveness of multi-agency protection.

The review claims that DWP has made “many improvements” since Philippa’s death, including to staff mental health training.

DWP claims it has worked to build “a culture of care and compassion”, through strengthening its “vulnerable customer champions” role and introducing “advanced customer support senior leaders” to “provide escalation routes for cases involving customers requiring advanced support”.

DWP also told the review it has improved the way its staff gather evidence for PIP claims, has ensured that its records are now permanently “watermarked” for claimants who need additional support with their claim, and now takes extra steps if a claimant fails to respond during a PIP application.

But the review also repeats DWP’s insistence that it “does not have a statutory safeguarding duty or legal duty of care”, although Manson makes no comment or recommendation on this statement.

Capita told the review that it has improved its PIP processes, including making it easier to review the assessment location.

25 May 2023

Public inquiry on inaccessible footbridge will be ‘line in the sand’, say activists

A “hugely important” public inquiry into Network Rail’s plan to build an inaccessible footbridge will be a “line in the sand” for disabled activists who are determined to fight further such proposals.

They believe Network Rail plans to build other inaccessible footbridges across the country as a cost-saving measure, and in breach of its duties under the Equality Act.

They hope the government’s decision to hold a public inquiry into the proposed bridge at Copmanthorpe, near York, will persuade Network Rail to reconsider plans for other inaccessible bridges.

Accessible transport campaigners have a played a significant part in persuading the government to hold the inquiry into the Copmanthorpe proposals, which will see a stepped footbridge built as a replacement for a dangerous but accessible level crossing.

Network Rail had appealed against City of York Council’s decision to refuse permission to divert a footpath by closing the level crossing and building the footbridge.

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 Copmanthorpe and the neighbouring village of Bishopthorpe along the course of the footpath.

Flick Williams, a powerchair-user from York, who first passed on concerns about the footbridge plans to other access campaigners, said she was “delighted” by the decision to hold a public inquiry.

She said: “If this is allowed to go ahead in its current form, it ends forever the possibility of an active travel route between the two villages.”

Williams said she fears that – if it is successful in the public inquiry – Network Rail will use that victory to argue for the right to build other inaccessible footbridges, and it will be “much, much harder for disabled people in other parts of the country to object because they will hold this up as a precedent”.

She told Disability News Service (DNS): “We are in the 21^st century, we should be going forwards and not backwards, not building in inaccessibility for hundreds of years to come.

“It’s just discrimination against the many people who are not yet disabled.”

Fellow accessible transport campaigner Doug Paulley, who also lives near Copmanthorpe, has tested the footpath on either side of the crossing and believes it could easily be made accessible for wheelchair-users, pushchair-users, cyclists, and others.

Paulley, also a wheelchair-user, told DNS that the Copmanthorpe case had become “a line in the sand”.

He said he and other activists were fighting hard to defeat Network Rail’s plans for Copmanthorpe because they hope to force it to think again on other plans for inaccessible footbridges.

He said: “We have this ageing infrastructure and it is very difficult to make it all accessible, but now they are building new inaccessible infrastructure where previously it was level.

“It just shows their attitude and their true contempt for disabled people. It would be locking in inaccessibility.”

The city council has said (PDF) the new footbridge would be expected to remain in place and “as is” for 120 years.

Paulley said the plans are particularly concerning because it is believed to be one of the first times – if not the first – that Network Rail is replacing an accessible crossing with one that is inaccessible.

He said: “I think it really is important. Even if they win [the public inquiry] they know they are potentially going to have to go through this process every time.”

He has already submitted written evidence outlining his concerns, and he hopes to give oral evidence to the inquiry.

Network Rail believes that adding ramps to the footbridge at a later stage could be achieved if funding was provided by another organisation, but that about 200 metres of extra land would be required.

Network Rail declined to say if it planned to build other inaccessible footbridges and if this was the first time it was replacing accessible infrastructure with an inaccessible bridge, suggesting that Disability News Service submit a freedom of information request as these were “detailed questions which will require a bit of digging”.

But a Network Rail spokesperson said: “We received confirmation yesterday (Monday 23 May) from the Transport Infrastructure Planning Unit that a public inquiry will take place later this year.  

“We’ve done a great deal of work to look at who uses the level crossing and believe that we have designed a solution that meets their needs, makes the best use of taxpayers’ money and makes sense for this location with poor current accessibility, and this will be presented at the inquiry.”

25 May 2023

Thousands of disabled people tell MPs: Cost-of-living crisis is affecting our health

Thousands of disabled people have told MPs how the cost-of-living crisis is affecting both their physical and mental health and forcing them to restrict their use of heating and hot water.

More than 7,000 disabled people responded to a survey (PDF) launched by the House of Commons petitions committee.

Many of them spoke of their anger and frustration and accused the government and wider society of “leaving them behind”, “ignoring them”, and “abandoning them”.

They said successive governments had always “ignored” their need for financial support with the additional costs they face as disabled people, but particularly through the Covid pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis.

Some wrote of their feelings of despair, saying they were not sure they could “survive much longer”, with some saying they had considered suicide.

The petitions committee published the results of the survey ahead of a debate on Monday that discussed two parliamentary petitions* (see separate story) that called for the government to provide more financial support for disabled people to cope with increases in the cost-of-living.

There were nearly 11,000 responses to the survey, two-thirds of them from disabled people and those with long-term health conditions.

Nearly all (97 per cent) of the respondents said they were concerned about the impact of the crisis on their physical health, or that of the disabled person they knew or cared for, and a similar proportion (94 per cent) were concerned about the impact on their mental health.

One respondent said: “I’m freezing, I’m hungry and I don’t receive the amount of care I need to live a dignified equitable life.

“A shower is a treat for me now; that’s the stage I have got to.”

They added: “I survived childhood cancer to become a disabled adult. I had so many hopes for my life but now each day I regret not dying of cancer. My life is not dignified.”

More than nine in 10 respondents (93 per cent) said they or the disabled person they knew or cared for had had to restrict their energy use, while 44 per cent had had to restrict their use of therapies.

One respondent said they slept fully clothed to keep warm, or sat in a chair with three double-folded blankets around them, which restricted their movement around their home and prevented them doing their physiotherapy exercises, which had led to their health deteriorating.

They said they were eating less healthy foods and had had to cut out fruit and vegetables, and added: “Life has gone from tolerable to just existing… I’m just existing and it’s endless and miserable.”

A former district nurse said they had been forced to cut down on their oxygen use because of the cost of electricity, while they could not afford to have the heating on, which increased their pain levels.

They are now more than £800 in arrears because they cannot afford the energy they use.

They said: “During my work as a district nurse I witnessed older, sick and disabled people freezing and starving in their homes because of low income.

“I never dreamed that my reward for helping them would be to end up living in the same poverty.”

One powerchair-user, from Scotland, told the committee: “I have had to reduce how much I use my electric wheelchair – it is the only way I can access my home and the outside world so I rarely get to go out now.

“This has caused profound loneliness and very poor mental health.”

They have also had to ration their use of their electric bed, which “has had a bad effect on my physical health”.

A disabled person who lives alone said they could not afford new clothes, basic medical essentials, haircuts, carpets and hygiene products, and had cut back on heating, electricity and washing, and were just eating half a meal or a snack every day.

They told the committee they were even resorting to “bum shuffling upstairs” rather than using their stairlift.

*One of the petitions – which secured more than 16,000 signatures and was started by disabled mum and carer Rachel Curtis – called for an energy grant to support those who rely on heating or equipment such as feeding pumps and ventilators that they need to stay alive, or need to pay for electricity to charge their mobility equipment. The other petition – which secured nearly 25,000 signatures and was drawn up by disabled student Abigail Broomfield – called for disabled people and carers who did not qualify for the government’s means-tested cost-of-living payments to be included in that package of support, and warned that without such help “many more disabled people could die”.

25 May 2023

Cost-of-living debate sparked by petitions ‘provides campaigning momentum’

Government support for disabled people in dealing with the extra costs they face has “barely scratched the surface” of their needs, a disabled MP has told a House of Commons debate.

Labour’s Marsha de Cordova told fellow MPs on Monday that she blamed the “hostile environment for disabled people” created by successive Conservative governments, which had been “compounded by the pandemic and the current cost-of-living crisis”.

She said the support provided by the government was “woefully insufficient and the very definition of what we would call sticking-plaster politics”.

De Cordova – who met disabled people’s organisations Inclusion London and Disability Rights UK for a briefing last week – criticised the government for failing to provide targeted support for disabled households who face high energy costs.

And she highlighted those who need to run equipment such as dialysis machines and oxygen concentrators.

She said: “Many disabled people have told me that it is pointless to prescribe medicine if a person cannot afford to run the equipment they need to stay alive.”

The debate was considering two parliamentary petitions that were set up by disabled campaigners to call for government action.

One of the petitions – which secured nearly 25,000 signatures and was drawn up by disabled student Abigail Broomfield – called for disabled people and carers who did not qualify for last year’s £650 means-tested cost-of-living payment to be included in that package of support, and warned that without such support “many more disabled people could die”.

This year there will be a further means-tested payment of £900.

The other petition – which secured more than 16,000 signatures and was started by disabled mum and carer Rachel Curtis – called for an energy grant for those who rely on heating or equipment such as feeding pumps and ventilators that they need to stay alive, or who need to pay for electricity to charge their mobility equipment.

As a result of their campaigning, the Commons petitions committee launched a survey which produced nearly 11,000 responses, with 93 per cent of those responding saying that they or the disabled person they knew or cared for had had to cut back on things that were essential for their health and wellbeing (see separate story).

De Cordova said that these and other survey results were “shocking”.

She told fellow MPs that “changes need to be made to the social security system to make it less cruel, unfair and hostile, and to restore it to its original purpose, which was to provide a safety net for those in need.

“Disabled people are not asking for more; they are asking for equity.”

The Conservative disabled MP Paul Maynard focused in his speech on how to support disabled people with higher energy costs.

He backed work carried out by the Retail Energy Code Company (RECC) to examine how to deal with disabled people’s rising energy costs.

He said this work had exposed the postcode lottery in NHS schemes for those who rely on equipment such as oxygen concentrators and dialysis machines, and how such subsidies do not rise when energy prices rise and are paid in arrears.

Maynard suggested that he – like RECC – supported an approach that would “tailor support to the needs of each eligible consumer, rather than a policy targeted at a wider range of vulnerable consumers, so that they can have full confidence that the costs of the relevant equipment are being met”.

Several opposition MPs criticised government changes to the warm home discount scheme in England and Wales, which meant that disabled people not on means-tested benefits were no longer eligible, as were many living in homes that do not meet the scheme’s “pretty crude” high energy cost threshold.

Several opposition MPs also criticised the level of the £150 cost-of-living payment for those on disability benefits – less than £3 a week – with many disabled people not eligible for the more generous £900 payment for those on means-tested benefits that will be paid during 2023-24.

Vicky Foxcroft, Labour’s shadow minister for disabled people, said: “Disability Rights UK and many others have said that the lack of meaningful increases in disability benefits over recent years means that the extra support given to disabled people has barely touched the sides.”

And she said that figures from the Trussell Trust showed that, three years ago, nearly two-thirds (62 per cent) of working-age people referred to food banks were disabled.

She said: “I ask the minister to commit to work closely with disabled people and disabled people’s organisations to find a solution to this crisis.”

In a speech that lasted three-quarters of an hour, the minister for disabled people, Tom Pursglove, admitted that the cost-of-living difficulties disabled people were facing were “pressing” and he insisted that ministers were “not complacent”.

He said the government had provided more than £94 billion in cost-of-living support over the last two years.

He defended the size of the £150 payment for those on disability benefits by arguing that the government “believe it is right that the highest amount goes to those on means-tested benefits”.

Pursglove said government estimates suggested that nearly three-fifths of those on personal independence payment and other extra costs disability benefits would receive the £900 means-tested payment.

He said ministers were “absolutely committed to ensuring that disabled people and people with health conditions receive the support that they need”.

Although he confirmed that the government was planning an evaluation of its cost-of-living payments later this year, he declined to promise Foxcroft that it would be published.

He also said there was “ongoing” work within the government’s Disability Unit that was “seeking to understand and evidence the full impact of the current cost of living on disabled people across a range of sectors”, and that this included “good dialogue and engagement with disabled people and their representative groups”.

He said this would allow the government to “look at the situation in its totality, understand the interventions that we have made to date and understand the needs that exist”.

Pursglove also said the government intended to “move away from universal energy bill support and towards better targeted support for those most in need”, including those who use energy-intensive medical equipment in the home, and that it was also engaging with disabled people’s organisations and representative groups on this issue.

He said the reform of the warm home discount scheme meant that 160,000 more households where a person is disabled or has a long-term health condition would receive a rebate.

After the debate, Broomfield praised de Cordova’s speech, and said she was happy that so many contributions had been made by MPs, and that the debate had provided “momentum to keep fighting for this campaign”.

But she said Pursglove appeared to have spent some of his speech discussing “irrelevant” topics “to either distract or to try and portray his department and government as being successful in helping disabled people and carers” when the reality was “they have not helped us enough”.

She said the months of campaigning had been “absolutely worth it, despite it taking a personal and physical toll on me.

“It has been worth it just to get disabled people heard by the government.

“I want this work to inspire other people to challenge this government.

“This isn’t the end of the campaign, and it will continue on until disabled people and carers get the help they so desperately need.”

Curtis thanked de Cordova for “holding the government to account and raising so many vital points”.

She said: “I think the evidence from the survey demonstrated the sheer desperation of disabled people, and the MPs at the debate really did push for change.

“I am disappointed in the response from Tom Pursglove as there was nothing of substance that the government intend to do to help.

“It was, yet again, a lot of words and no actual action.”

Katy Styles, a carer and founder of the We Care Campaign, which supported Curtis and promoted her petition, said there had been “an overall consensus amongst all the speakers that something needs to be done”.

She said: “Now it’s just what, how and when. The minister’s answer failed to address the urgency of the issue, but we hope he will work hard to address issues highlighted in the debate.

“We will seek a meeting with him to discuss what action he will be taking.”

25 May 2023

MPs raise concerns over DWP death evidence ‘cover-up’

MPs have raised concerns over the actions of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), after it hid vital evidence from a statutory safeguarding review into a disabled man who starved to death after his benefits were wrongly stopped.

Nottingham City Safeguarding Adults Board confirmed last week that DWP failed to share key documents with the independent consultant who carried out the review into the death of Errol Graham.

The documents would have shown that DWP knew Errol had been experiencing significant mental distress just three years before his employment and support allowance (ESA) was suddenly withdrawn by the department when he failed to attend an assessment in the autumn of 2017.

Alison Burton, Errol’s daughter-in-law, who has fought for years for justice in the wake of his death, said last week that DWP’s behaviour was “absolutely disgraceful” and “a cover-up”.

Now the Commons work and pensions select committee has told Disability News Service (DNS) it is considering taking action.

But it also raised concerns about DWP’s continuing failure to sign a legal agreement with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) that would force the department to improve its treatment of disabled claimants.

It is more than a year since the commission said it expected DWP to sign a section 23 legal agreement – under the Equality Act 2006 – by the summer of 2022.

Such an agreement would commit DWP to addressing the discrimination faced by disabled benefit claimants, particularly those with mental distress and ill-health, and learning difficulties.

It follows more than a decade of deaths that have been closely linked to DWP’s actions and policies.

Asked about the Errol Graham allegations, Labour’s Stephen Timms, chair of the work and pensions committee, told DNS: “The committee is concerned about this.  

“It gives rise to clear questions the department should answer.”  

He added: “We welcome the signs of greater openness from the new secretary of state [Mel Stride], which we hope will lead on to a sustained improvement.  

“At the same time, we are very puzzled why the negotiation with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, originally expected to be completed last summer, has still not been concluded. No explanation has been provided for the delay.”

The committee met yesterday (Wednesday) to discuss its plans for future work, and Timms said ahead of the meeting that both these concerns would be raised.

An EHRC spokesperson told DNS the information about DWP hiding evidence from the safeguarding review had been “flagged” to its “enforcement team”.

But he said the commission had nothing further to add to a statement it issued about the section 23 agreement in March.

In March, an EHRC spokesperson had said: “We are working with the Department for Work and Pensions and have recently entered a phase of advanced discussions.

“We are meeting regularly to progress the matter and work through details that are being considered for the section 23 agreement and activities within it.

“The DWP has committed to working collaboratively with the EHRC and has restated that their intention is to do everything they can to make sure they support the most vulnerable people they are responsible for.”

This week, the commission declined to say if it was now time for action to be taken against a department that has repeatedly tried to cover up links between its actions and the deaths of claimants.

DWP has repeatedly misled and hid evidence from public bodies and those investigating its activities, including coroners, judges, the National Audit Office and its own independent reviewers.

The Nottingham revelations add fuel to calls for an independent inquiry into the links between DWP and countless deaths of claimants.

Disabled people’s grassroots groups, bereaved relatives and charities, as well as Labour MPs such as Debbie Abrahams, Marsha de Cordova and John McDonnell, have been calling for an inquiry since 2019, following countless avoidable deaths linked to the department’s actions.

Last week, Abrahams, a member of the work and pensions committee, said it was “truly shocking that the government tries to evade being held to account, seemingly acting with impunity” and that DWP appeared to have a “blatant disregard for the safety and wellbeing” of disabled claimants.

DWP has refused to comment on the Errol Graham evidence.

25 May 2023

Watchdog holds back verdict on latest care sector concerns

The care watchdog has declined to raise concerns about the state of adult social care services in England, despite releasing a new batch of inspection reports that show nearly half of them failed to meet acceptable standards.

In just a week, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) published 165 reports on adult social care inspections.

Of the 163 that produced overall ratings, 60 services were found to require improvement and 13 were rated as “inadequate”*, which meant 45 per cent were seen as failing to reach an acceptable standard.

Just four out of 163 were said to be “outstanding”.

Nine years ago, CQC introduced a new method of regulation, based on “ratings and risk”, which means it is more likely to inspect those services where concerns have been raised by whistleblowers, service-users and relatives.

It also paused routine inspections during the pandemic, and now appears mainly to inspect services it considers “very high risk”.

Last autumn, CQC published its annual State of Care report, which showed a slow, steady deterioration in the standard of social care services in England.

That report revealed a small but significant increase in the proportion of adult social care services that were rated as inadequate, with a rise from 1.22 per cent in 2021 to 1.30 per cent in 2022, and a similar increase in those rated as requiring improvement, from 14.10 per cent to 15.36 per cent.

CQC said this week that it would not be able to draw wider conclusions about the state of the sector until it published its next State of Care report later this year.

But a CQC spokesperson said: “We are continuing to prioritise risk-based inspections to ensure our inspection activity is focused where the quality of care is of concern.

“We expect all adult care services to be providing the very best care to people.

“The majority of care homes in England are good or outstanding and this reflects the incredible efforts of carers and providers who have gone above and beyond to provide high quality care.

“However, where concerns are brought to our attention we will not hesitate to act.

“We will always follow up on information of concern, and where there is risk we will inspect to ensure that people are safe and receiving high quality care.

“Where we find people are at risk we will take further regulatory action to ensure people’s safety and human rights are upheld.”

*An “inadequate” rating means the service is “performing badly” and CQC has taken enforcement action against its provider, while “requires improvement” means the service is “not performing as well as it should” and the watchdog has told it how to improve

25 May 2023

Fresh doubts over impact of government’s ‘scrap the WCA’ plans

Fresh doubts have been raised about the impact on disabled people of government plans to scrap the work capability assessment as part of a controversial package of welfare reforms.

As part of their Transforming Support white paper, ministers plan to abolish the assessment and introduce a new “health element” of universal credit, with eligibility linked to receipt of personal independence payment (PIP) or disability living allowance (DLA).

But among concerns raised about the plans – which would see DWP work coaches deciding if a disabled person could carry out work-related activity – are fears that they will lead to a sharp drop in the number of disabled people eligible for extra financial support because they are not able to work.

Last month, Disability News Service asked the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in a freedom of information request to explain its insistence that the changes would be “broadly cash neutral”.

It continues to refuse to release the figures on which it bases this conclusion because it says the policy is “still in development”.

But, in its response, it also said its internal costings show that “broadly the same number would be eligible for the new [universal credit] health element as the number of those who would no longer receive an additional element”.

When asked to clarify this response, a DWP spokesperson said this meant that “the total number of recipients of a work/health element will be broadly the same after the reform as before”.

DWP has previously confirmed that any legislation to scrap the work capability assessment would not be introduced until after the next general election.

Ken Butler, welfare and benefits policy adviser at Disability Rights UK, said: “The health element proposals will mean that around 632,000 disabled people who receive the employment and support allowance or universal credit support component will lose this as they do not receive PIP or DLA.

“Are the DWP really saying that around 632,000 disabled people who receive PIP but not currently the support component will then replace them?

“This seems very difficult to believe, and impossible to check given the sparse content of official DWP universal credit statistics. 

“As ever, instead of increasing trust and transparency, the DWP plays at smoke and mirrors.

“Whatever, there is no justification for reducing some disabled people’s benefit entitlement by the equivalent of around £4,700 a year*.”

Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, told disability minister Tom Pursglove in parliament last month that his proposal to “essentially collapse the work capability assessment into the PIP assessment” would mean up to one million people with fluctuating health conditions, or those recovering from treatment, could lose out on up to £350 a month, which he said was “causing considerable distress”.

Ashworth declined to comment this week on the latest information released by DWP.

A DWP spokesperson said: “The health and disability white paper commits to removing the financial disincentives that exist within the current system by scrapping the work capability assessment, improving support and the experience for people when applying for and receiving benefits.

“These are the biggest reforms in a decade.

“That’s why we will take time to carefully consider how best to implement the changes – and give security and certainty to claimants, continuing to engage with disabled people and people with health conditions, and our stakeholders, as our proposals develop, before the reforms are rolled out on a staged basis. 

“We will put protections in place to ensure that no one experiences financial loss at the point at which the reform is enacted, while improving our offer of tailored support to help people find and stay in sustainable work.”

*The annual equivalent of the universal credit support component rate

25 May 2023

Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week

A safety investigation has warned that young people with complex mental health needs are being put at significant risk, by being placed on general children’s wards in England. The findings come from the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch – a government-funded body – which says paediatric wards are designed to care for patients who only have physical health needs and not those with mental health needs. It describes the situation in 18 hospitals it visited as “challenging”, while 13 were described as “not safe” for children who were suicidal or at risk of harming themselves to be on their paediatric wards: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-65695400

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been criticised for misusing alt text on social media – weeks after big brands were called out for doing it. His official Twitter account posted a four-picture photo grid showing cabinet members having a meeting. The alt text fields – which are supposed to describe what is in the images for blind users – simply read: “We’re growing the economy.”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-65644575

Charities have criticised the government over its cost-of-living payment for disabled people, calling it “woefully inadequate”. The government has announced that more than six million disabled people will receive the one-off payment of £150 from 20 June. But disability charities say the £150 is not enough and the government should be doing more to help disabled people: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/charities-hit-out-at-woefully-inadequate-%C2%A3150-cost-of-living-payment-for-disabled-people-145124211.html

25 May 2023

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

A well respected disabled journalist who we have often worked with is writing for a national newspaper (also respected) about care charging and is looking to speak to people whose care charges have increased recently or who can’t afford to pay them. If you are willing to speak to them please email us at mail@dpac.uk.net