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Timms Review complaint: Welsh call for independent review

Action, All Posts, Benefits, local authority cuts, local groups, News, PIP, Politics, welfare cuts, Welfare reforms No Responses »

Jul 192026

Click here for the Easy Read version

Logos of DPAC Cymru, Voices ADFOCAD, Don't Call Me Special, Social Workers Union, Unite Community Wales, Austerity Action Group, TSSA Wales No.1 Branch, Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union, PCS Cymru, Swansea and district trades council, Cardiff trades council, and the National Shop Stewards Network

A powerful coalition of Welsh disability, carers’, and trade union organisations wrote to the Welsh Government on Tuesday asking ministers to lodge their “strongest possible grievance” with the UK Government over the Timms Review into the PIP disability benefit.

The UK-wide review was announced in parliament late last year, with promises of “co-production” with disabled people, and a pledge of no further cuts until its conclusion. However, Welsh Disabled Peoples’ Organisations are adamant that co-production is not happening, with Welsh disabled people, they claim, treated with particular contempt.

The intervention came in the final week before the Senedd summer recess, after local authorities, including Swansea Council, admitted they have made “no provision” for impending disability cuts in their medium-term budgets.

The groups have asked the new Welsh Government to deliver on its promise of providing practical assistance in achieving a “long standing demand” of “a genuine disability review, led independently and democratically by disabled people and our organisations, including our trade unions.”

The letter was coordinated by Disabled People Against Cuts Cymru (DPAC Cymru). Co-signatories include Disabled Peoples’ Organisations, unpaid Carers’ Organisations, and trade union organisations.

Statements from signatories:

Disabled People Against Cuts Cymru (DPAC Cymru) led several high-profile protests against the disability cuts last year. A spokesperson for the group said they intend to hold the UK Government to the promises they made to parliament:

“The Timms Review was won by protest, but it is not what was promised. We are asking the Welsh Government to join us in setting out a clear expectation that the UK Government may not table further disability cuts while a genuine and independent review takes place in Wales.

“MPs, whatever their views, must also refuse, on principle, to vote for disability cuts for the duration.

“All we’re demanding from Westminster here is a fair fight. Enough with the broken promises, misdirection, and insults.”

VOICES ADFOCAD operates across Wales to promote and advocate for the rights of Unpaid Carers. A spokesperson said:

“Disabled people in Wales have been clear for years: we will not accept reviews that speak about us while shutting us out. The Timms Review has failed to meet even the most basic standards of co‑production, and Welsh disabled people have been treated with disregard throughout the process.

“We are asking Welsh ministers to intervene because our communities deserve a review that is democratic, accountable, and led by disabled people ourselves, not another exercise that reinforces the inequality we are fighting to dismantle.”

Plaid Cymru Anabledd is the disabled members’ section of Plaid Cymru, the party that leads Wales’ new minority government. A spokesperson for the section said:

“The Welsh Government must use every lever it has to demand a genuine, independent review — led by disabled people, our organisations and our trade unions. Anything less is not co-production, it’s a rubber stamp.

“Disabled people were told we would be worked with. Instead we’ve been worked around. That promise the labour Westminster government made has to mean something — or it was never made in good faith.”

Social Workers Union (SWU) General Secretary John McGowan stated:

“Disability benefits are not luxuries. The PIP disability benefit is a crucial support to help disabled people meet the extra costs of disability and long-term ill health and to support their independence. We urge the Welsh Government to join DPAC Cymru in demanding an independent review on PIP cuts which would impact on 275,000 people in Wales.

“No further cuts must be made until a genuinely co-produced disability review has been achieved, and the focus should be on improving the system rather than further restricting access to it. To do otherwise will cause significant hardship for people with physical and mental health conditions – pushing them out of work and into deep poverty – and put further strain on the social care system already stretched to breaking point by chronic underfunding and a staffing crisis.”

Sarah Woolley, General Secretary of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union (BFAWU), said:

“Disabled people have the right to dignity, independence and a decent standard of living. If the Timms Review is to have credibility, it must genuinely be led with disabled people, not simply carried out in their name.

“Our members know the reality of low pay, insecure work and rising living costs. Personal Independence Payment helps meet the extra costs of disability, and further cuts would push more people into hardship while placing even greater pressure on public services.

“BFAWU stands in solidarity with Disabled People’s Organisations and supports the call for an independent review, led by disabled people and their organisations, including trade unions. No further disability cuts should be made until that work has been properly completed.”

Mark Evans is the secretary of Swansea and District Trades Council, which brings together affiliated branches and represents the community arm of the trade union movement in the Swansea area. He said:

“Our Trades Council thinks it is deplorable that a Labour Government has not properly and fully consulted Disabled People in compiling the Timms review. Many disabled people are members of trade unions that are affiliated to the Labour Party and many will rightly be considering why their union donates to a party that has attacked disability benefits in the past and given the lack of consultation is likely to do so again. If this is the case we will will be fully supporting disabled trade union members.”

Responding to the Timms Review interim report released last week, a DPAC Cymru spokesperson added:

“The Timms Review is badly dressed in the language of disability activism, but uses none of the methods. About the only thing the interim report gets right is that PIP is not fit for purpose.

“Disabled people, more than anyone, want a better system. The Timms Review will not deliver that because it is not designed to. The review is weaponising our concerns in order to justify cuts in a ‘caring’ way. Meanwhile, the ‘nasty’ arm of the UK Government is demonising us. Caught in that pincer movement, disabled people are a political football.

This has nothing to do with balancing the books. When the last attempt at welfare reform introduced a more punitive benefit system, it too ended up costing more than it saved. The Timms Review is about divide and rule, pure and simple. It is a cynical distraction from falling living standards and a failing economy. Defeating disability cuts is a fight for everyone.”

The letter text

Dear:

Rhun ap Iorwerth, First Minister of Wales
Sioned Williams, Deputy First Minister of Wales

14th July 2026

RE: disability cuts and the Timms Review

The new Welsh Government has made a welcome commitment to delivering a robust and action-oriented Disabled People’s Rights Plan. UK Government disability cuts are a serious risk to that plan, and a crisis in the making.

Concerningly, major Welsh local authorities like Swansea Council already admit they have made “no provision” for disability cuts in their medium-term budgets.

The UK Government was forced to promise in parliament that there would be no further cuts until the conclusion of a review, co-produced with disabled people – the Timms Review. The UK Government has proven itself, many times over, unable and unwilling to keep that promise. Despite its claims, the Timms Review is not delivering co-production, and cuts are continuing.

We are therefore writing to you, as Disabled People’s Organisations, unpaid Carers’ Organisations, and trade union organisations, with two requests:

1. We kindly request that the Welsh Government formally lodge with the UK Government our strongest possible grievance over the delivery of the Timms Review and disability cuts ‘consultation’ process since March 2025. It has been blatant: we have been treated badly because we are disabled people, and we have been treated badly because we are Welsh.

2. We also request the Welsh Government take concrete steps to provide practical assistance in achieving our long standing demand: an independent and genuine disability review, led by disabled people and our organisations including our trade unions, inviting the views of carers and the workers who deliver the services we rely on.

Despite themselves, we intend to hold the UK Government to the promise they made. We hope that you will join us in making clear the expectation that the UK Government may not table further disability cuts while a genuine and independent review takes place in Wales, and that MPs, whatever their views, must also refuse, on principle, to vote for disability cuts for the duration.

Specific points, such as what we suggest by the Welsh Government providing practical assistance, and our specific democratic grievances with the UK Government, are developed in the attached briefing.

Yours sincerely,

Disabled People Against Cuts Cymru (DPAC Cymru)
VOICES ADFOCAD
Don’t Call Me Special
Plaid Cymru Anabledd
Prof. Debbie Foster, Former co-Chair of the Welsh Government’s Disability Rights Taskforce.
Gemma Southgate, TSSA Wales & Western Executive Committee Member
Siân Boyles, PCS National officer for Wales
Mark Evans, Secretary, Swansea and District Trades Council
Cardiff Trades Council
TSSA Wales No.1 Branch
PCS Wales
PCS Proud
Unite Community Wales
Unite Community, Cardiff & Area
Social Workers Union (SWU)
Austerity Action Group (AAG)
Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU)
National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN)

The letter to the Welsh Government and attached briefing is available here

For press enquires contact dpac.cymru+press@gmail.com

Joint statement on campaigning against welfare cuts

Events, Welfare reforms 4 Responses »

Nov 162012

Joint statement on campaigning against welfare cuts

Public and Commercial Services union, Disabled People Against Cuts and Black Triangle Campaign

PCS, DPAC and Black Triangle Campaign are united in opposing the government’s austerity programme, which seeks to force people to pay for the failure of the finance system and of the government to regulate it.

The government is making unprecedented cuts across the public sector and is removing people’s social, economic and civil rights. The welfare state which was established to provide social security to those unable to work is being systematically dismantled through privatisation and £30 billion of cuts announced to date.

This is not about balancing the books. Over the same period, the government has also given away £30 billion in tax breaks to business. This is an ideological assault on the welfare state.

Disabled people are being disproportionately and brutally affected by these cuts, which include to Employment and Support Allowance, and the Disability Living Allowance, the imposition of the Work Capability Assessment (carried out by Atos) and the proposed abolition of the Independent Living Fund.

It is shameful and immoral that private companies are making profit from disabled and unemployed workers but worse, it does not work, the public sector delivers services more effectively, efficiently and less expensively than the private sector.

The cuts are blighting the lives of the least economically secure in society. The government’s approach cannot work: there are already 2.5 million people unemployed, and over 6 million seeking additional work. Pushing disabled people off benefits – without creating jobs or tackling employer discrimination – is simply a means of cutting disabled people’s living standards.

Evidence shows supportive social security systems that treat people with dignity and respect – rather than punitive systems based on conditionality, sanctions and low benefit levels – help individuals, families and communities but also the wider economy. The social, individual and household consequences of these cuts contravene the right to independent living enshrined in the United Nations Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

To justify this brutal attack on disabled people and those on welfare more generally, the government has engaged in a campaign of vilification to label those on benefits as lazy, as feckless and as scroungers. Much of the news and print media have colluded in this hate campaign – leading to a sharp increase in attacks on disabled workers, including physical assaults. The government’s own figures show benefit fraud accounts for £1.5 billion a year, while £16 billion of benefits and tax credits are left unclaimed.

Tens of thousands of PCS members are involved in the administration of the welfare state and they are committed to providing a service that meets people’s needs. Workers are facing huge cuts in their pay, pensions and rights at work – 40% of those workers who will administer universal credit will also be entitled to it.

PCS members are often on the frontline, facing the anguish and anger of those suffering from government welfare policies. PCS members did not create these policies, the union does not support them and is committed to campaigning against them.

We commit to strengthening our campaigning alliance, which includes peaceful direct action against those politicians who have supported these policies and against those companies that seek to profit from them.

The government is trying to divide people: between those in work and those out of work;, between disabled and non-disabled people, between those in the public sector and those in the private sector. The key to defeating these welfare cuts, and austerity more generally, is unity.

PCS, DPAC, and Black Triangle members have a common cause in defeating these welfare cuts and in building a decent welfare state. We are united.

London: Benefit Claimants in Solidarity With the PCS – June 30th

Action 2 Responses »

Jun 262011

Thursday, June 30 · 8:30am – 11:00am

Euston Tower, then Triton Square, Euston Road, London, NW1

Benefit claimants, disabled people and supporters will be joining the PCS picket line at HMRC, Euston Tower from 8.30am*.

We will be standing in solidarity with all striking workers on the day, and in
particular public sector workers who know only too well what the result of this
government’s savage welfare policies will be.

Join us at Euston Tower, where speeches will begin at 9am. At 10am we will be
paying a short visit to notorious poverty pimps Atos Origin, the IT company
responsible for carrying out the disastrous Work Capability Assessments which
have driven sick and disabled claimants to suicide.

Many of us then will make our way to the Trade Union march and Striker’s
Assembly, both being held in central London. For full details of all events,
pickets and actions taking place in London on the day please visit:
https://www.j30strike.org/location/london/

*the PCS picket line will begin at 7am so please come earlier if you can.

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=157149237689219&;

DPAC and Anti Atos related events from last week

Events No Responses »

May 142011

Information about associated events with the National Week Against Atos Origin can be found at the National Claimants Against Benefit Cuts website

West Midlands anti cuts co-ordinating meeting press release.

At West Bromwich Town Hall on Tuesday 10 May, anti-cuts groups from across the West Midlands met to plan and coordinate opposition to the ConDem Government’s assault on the Public Sector and Welfare System.

Groups from Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Shropshire and Walsall and DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) called upon anyone opposed to the cuts to join them in supporting the Trade Unions currently in dispute or balloting their members over the vicious attacks on pensions, and to take part in rallies and demonstrations on 30 June when nearly a million workers could take the first step in the industrial action needed to defeat the Government’s plans.

more from Right to Work website
‘Who are they targeting and How can we stop them?’ Birmingham meeting

On Thursday 12th May Right to Work, Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and Social Work Action Network (SWAN ) hosted a meeting at Unison headquarters in Birmingham about ConDems attacks on the disabled and cuts to benefits. It posed two questions – Who are they targeting and How can we stop them?

Linda Burnip from DPAC outlined the detail and depth of the attacks on disabled people. Linda highlighted the savage cuts to housing, disability, sickness and welfare benefits, with disabled people likely to see a drastic drop in disposable income with many slipping below the poverty line.

Polly Sweeney, a solicitor from Irwin Mitchell spoke about how discrimination law can be used to stop the cuts to disabled people and gave us a report on a case she’s just won preventing Birmingham City Council changing eligibility criteria for care funding.

Nicki Ward and Barbara Marshall from SWAN pointed out British social welfare policy under the Coalition Government is undergoing a breathtaking upheaval. Profit and care are not compatible. SWAN are urging those involved in social work to make a stand against the social violence being unleashed by the ConDem coalition: to speak out, campaign and join the movements of resistance.

Paul Brandon National Secretary of Right to Work urged everyone to remember this is a bankers created crisis and we should not be made to pay for it. He urged everyone to support coordinated strike action on the 30th June and to build for massive demonstrations outside the Lib Dem conference on the 18 Sep in Birmingham and the Tory party conference on the 2nd October with them ultimate aim of bringing the ConDem coalition down.