News Archive
News Stories from the week ending 9 July 2010
Campaigners fear government will water down Equality Act
Campaigners fear that delays in bringing forward key elements of the Equality Act could mean the coalition government is planning to water down parts of the legislation.
The government announced this week that much of Labour's act - which streamlines existing equality laws and provides new protection in some areas - would come into force this October, as planned.
This will include laws banning employers from using health questionnaires to discriminate against disabled job applicants; providing protection from indirect disability discrimination; and making it easier to prove that someone seeking protection under the act is a disabled person.
But the coalition government has yet to consult on the draft regulations that will describe the specific duties that public bodies such as councils and NHS trusts will have to meet as part of a new single equality duty.
The Government Equalities Office (GEO) told Disability News Service this week that the public sector duty and the draft regulations were being considered as part of a review of laws passed by the previous government but not yet implemented.
A GEO spokeswoman said the government was "looking at how the rest of the act can be implemented in the best way for business".
Earlier this week, Theresa May, the home secretary and minister for women and equalities, said: "A successful economy needs the full participation of all its citizens and we are committed to implementing the act in the best way for business."
The duties have been a key area of concern for many campaigners. Only when the government publishes the draft regulations will disabled people know how far the government wants public bodies to go in promoting disability equality.
Anne Kane, policy manager for Inclusion London, said she was concerned about the government's delay in publishing the draft regulations, and feared that this might signal a weakening of the specific duties.
She highlighted concerns that the government's comments about business might mean it is planning to water down Labour's plans for specific duties on procurement.
The procurement duties could force public bodies to consider disability and other equality factors in the £125 billion a year they spend on buying goods and services from the private sector.
8 July 2010
Government research finds DLA plays vital role
Disability living allowance (DLA) allows disabled people to maintain control and independence in their lives, and helps them avoid having to move into residential care, according to new government-funded research.
The Impact of Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance report, published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), says there is "a wide range of ways" in which DLA and AA enable disabled and older people to pay for the services and goods they need.
The report's authors - who carried out face-to-face interviews with 45 recipients of DLA and attendance allowance (AA) - say that working-age recipients were "unanimous in expressing views that DLA made a big difference to them".
Their report concludes that "while DLA or AA often does not go directly towards paying for personal care, the benefits have a key role in reducing potential demand for formal services", and help people avoid residential care and in "maintaining or avoiding deterioration in health".
The findings are likely to be seized upon by disabled campaigners fighting government plans to slash the disability benefits bill, with both the chancellor, George Osborne, and Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, highlighting the cost of the DLA budget in recent weeks.
The report says disabled people use DLA and AA to manage their lives "by being able to afford market prices for housework, laundry, garden maintenance, odd jobs and taxi rides; by buying frozen meals or buying hot meals outside the home; by relying on frequent use of telephones, and by running private vehicles".
The disabled people who were interviewed said DLA and AA provided a safety net, helped them manage their debts, and allowed them to work, to live at home and to be part of society.
A second piece of research for the DWP reports on the possible reasons for the low number of DLA claimants in work.
The Disability Living Allowance and Work report concludes that DLA recipients are, on average, "more severely disabled than other disabled people, and that they suffer higher levels of disadvantage and lower employment rates as a result".
But it also says that DLA claimants are "significantly less likely to have a job" than other disabled people facing similar employment barriers.
The report says this could be because receiving DLA "will reduce the financial incentive to take up employment", that taking a job could put their benefits at risk, and because there is a "widespread perception" that DLA provides compensation for those unable to work because of their impairment.
But the report also says that DLA can help people remain in work, and it calls for more support to help those recently disabled to keep their jobs.
Neil Coyle, director of policy for Disability Alliance, said there was a "perverse incentive" for people claiming DLA not to work because of the risk of a DWP spot check on their eligibility if they take a job.
He added: "Actually, if you are going to go into work you are more likely to need support with travel, work clothes and more personal assistance."
DA is about to begin new research into how DLA is spent, whether it meets people's needs, how well it supports them to work and whether it "does the job it was intended to do".
He said: "We are not saying DLA is perfect. We acknowledge there are issues within DLA that we would like to see addressed."
But he said the government's plans were about cutting the number of people receiving DLA by 20 per cent, rather than addressing the problems with how DLA works.
8 July 2010
SEN review 'is chance to fight for inclusion'
Inclusive education campaigners have welcomed the announcement that the government is to publish a green paper on disabled children and those with special educational needs (SEN) this autumn.
Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrat children's minister, said the SEN system needed to be "more family friendly so that parents don't feel they have to battle to get the support their child needs" and "far more transparent".
And she said the government wanted to "make sure that the most vulnerable children get the best quality of support and care".
Teather said she would look at the results of Ofsted's review of SEN, expected later this summer, and the other "many reviews of SEN policy in recent years".
These are likely to include Brian Lamb's SEN inquiry for the Labour government, which called last December for an end to the "culture of low expectations" for children with SEN.
Teather said she would also listen to the views of "parents, teachers and organisations with an interest in this area".
Her government has already pledged to "remove the bias towards inclusion" in disabled children's education and "prevent the unnecessary closure of special schools".
Tara Flood, chief executive of the Alliance for Inclusive Education (ALLFIE), said she welcomed any review of SEN policy "because it gives us the opportunity to raise again the support that there is for inclusive education across many, many parents" and "to explode the myth that there is a bias in favour of inclusion".
She said: "They say they absolutely support the right of parents to choose mainstream schools and to ensure children get the support they need - if the review is going to put that into practice and make choice genuine for parents of disabled children we cannot do anything but welcome that."
But she said ALLFIE was "disappointed" that Teather appeared to have changed her enthusiastic pre-election support for inclusion, and was now quoting the Conservative manifesto - which says that "the most vulnerable children deserve the very highest quality of care" - almost word for word.
Flood said the emphasis on "vulnerable children" and "care" would send "alarm bells ringing across the country".
She said: "All children have a right to be educated and I think they are shifting away from that right and that is extremely alarming."
Flood said she hoped Teather would work closely with disabled people on the review "because it is disabled people who are experts in this area, given that we are the ones who have been subjected to the SEN framework."
8 July 2010
Leap in ESA appeals 'exposes flaws in system'
The number of disabled people appealing against a decision to refuse their claim for the new out-of-work disability benefit has rocketed over the last year.
New figures released by the Tribunals Service show that in the first quarter of 2009-10 there were about 10,000 employment and support allowance (ESA) appeals.
By the second quarter of the year, this had leaped to 29,000, with a further steep increase to 41,000 in the third quarter, and up again to more than 46,000 in the first three months of 2010.
The figures also show that nearly two-fifths of ESA appeals that were completed at a hearing last year were successful.
ESA replaced incapacity benefit for new claimants in October 2008, with those claiming the benefit being subjected to the much-criticised work capability assessment (WCA).
So far, 69 per cent of those who complete the assessment have been found "fit for work" and ineligible for ESA, far higher than the Labour government's prediction of 49 per cent.
In March, a report by Citizens Advice said "high numbers" of "seriously ill and disabled people" had been found "fit for work" after taking the assessment.
A Department for Work and Pensions spokeswoman said the number of appeals had increased because ESA was a new benefit and there were long "time lapses" in the application process, including a 13-week assessment phase and the length of time Jobcentre Plus has to submit an appeal to the Tribunals Service.
She said that, although ESA started in October 2008, there were not significant numbers of appeals until March 2010, while appeals were "now in a relatively steady state".
But Neil Coyle, director of policy for Disability Alliance, said the change to ESA "has not been communicated well", so many people were appealing because they did not understand why their claim had been turned down.
This has added to the problems with the WCA, which was "not doing the job it was intended to do" and was "undermining the changes to the welfare reform system".
He added: "There really is an imperative to get the assessment right first time and ensure communication is done well, so we avoid unnecessary expenditure on appeals at a time when all government departments are being squeezed so significantly."
8 July 2010
Anger grows over government's plans for DLA
Anger at the government's plans to slash spending on disability living allowance (DLA) has continued to mount, with one disabled people's organisation describing it as "wholesale, brutal attack on disabled people".
Documents published after last month's emergency budget reveal that the Treasury expects to cut the number of people claiming DLA - as well as spending on DLA - by a fifth by 2016.
The budget 2010 policy costings document says the cuts will be achieved by assessing all new and existing working-age DLA claimants through a new medical test over three years from 2013, along with "revised eligibility criteria".
Anne Kane, policy manager for Inclusion London, the capital's new Deaf and disabled people's organisation, said the plans were "absolutely horrific".
She said: "The government's intention to shatter the lives of disabled people becomes clearer by the day."
She said the aim of a 20 per cent reduction in the number of people receiving DLA and in spending on DLA was a "wholesale, brutal attack on disabled people which, particularly when considered together with the attack on incapacity benefit and attack on public services and other benefits, is without comparison in the post-war decades".
A small number of MPs - mostly from opposition parties - have started to record their opposition to the plans by signing Commons early day motions (EDM).
EDM 369, by Labour MP Fiona O'Donnell, which states that the DLA reforms will lead to more disabled people living in poverty, has been signed by more than 30 MPs. EDM 393, put down by Labour MP Kate Hoey, criticises moves to introduce the new medical assessment, and has so far won cross-party support from 23 MPs.
Disabled activist Adam Lotun and three other disabled campaigners visited Parliament this week to lobby MPs to oppose the government's DLA plans and sign Hoey's EDM.
Lotun said he and his fellow activists spoke to more than 20 MPs and 40 researchers. Several MPs said they had believed the new assessment was just about "weeding out" benefit fraudsters.
Lotun said disabled people were "living in a state of fear" over the proposed cuts to DLA, along with other welfare reforms and plans to drastically cut government spending.
8 July 2010
Academies bill 'could undermine specialist support for pupils'
Disabled peers have raised fears that the government's academies bill could "fatally undermine" the provision of specialist support to disabled pupils.
They fear that withdrawing money from councils' specialist support budgets to give to new academy schools - as proposed by the bill - will leave too little money for local authorities to provide services to children with "low incidence" special educational needs (SEN) or impairments.
The bill aims to expand the number of academies - publicly-funded independent schools that are free from council control.
The government has said that academies would be able to buy back specialist support from their local authority.
But Baroness Rosalie Wilkins pointed to research by the National Deaf Children's Society, which found that out of 66 local authorities where a deaf child with a statement of SEN was enrolled in an existing academy, in only 17 did the academy buy in support from the council.
Baroness Wilkins said she backed calls by the National Sensory Impairment Partnership to set up a working group to examine the problem urgently.
She added: "Children with low incidence needs may, by definition, be fewer in number. That cannot be an excuse to pass a bill which would potentially prevent many from getting the support that they need.
"I urge the minister to do more than just recognise that there is a problem. He must find solutions before this bill is allowed to pass."
Lord Colin Low said specialist services - such as support for mainstream teachers, Braille teaching, and communication support - were "at the heart of special education provision".
He said it was "absolutely essential" that the government made it clear "exactly how specialist support services will be sustained" when the bill becomes law.
Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson - who was speaking in place of Baroness Jane Campbell - said that the all party parliamentary disability group had "frequently been told that too many disabled children are not getting the specialist support that they need at school fully to engage with the curriculum".
She said: "I am concerned that the bill may have the unintended consequence of worsening this problem."
Lord Hill, the Conservative junior education minister, said he would meet with Baroness Wilkins to discuss the issue further.
The bill completed its report stage in the Lords, with its third reading due on 13 July.
8 July 2010
Campaigners fear government could bow to building lobby
Campaigners fear the government could bow to pressure from the house-building lobby and delay the implementation of compulsory accessibility and adaptability standards for all new homes.
The Foundation for Lifetime Homes and Neighbourhoods - the accessible housing provider Habinteg, RADAR, Age UK and the Town and Country Planning Association - spoke out as it launched a new version of its Lifetime Homes Standard following a consultation.
The standard is a set of 16 design criteria - key features that should be included in the design of accessible and adaptable housing.
The foundation said it was vital that all new homes were designed according to the Lifetime Homes Standard, with 300,000 disabled and older people living in unsuitable housing.
The Labour government had agreed that all public sector housing in England would be built to the Lifetime Homes Standard from 2011 (it is already a requirement in Wales and Northern Ireland), with a target of 2013 for all private sector homes.
But it backed away from this commitment in last December's pre-budget report, saying it wanted "a proportionate approach" and that any move to make the standard mandatory for all new homes would not be until 2013 "at the earliest".
Labour's review of Lifetime Homes policy is continuing under the new coalition government.
Andy Shipley, the foundation's Lifetime Homes coordinator, said: "The government has committed to continuing the review but it is still unclear which way they are going to go with it and how committed they are to seeing Lifetime Homes as the way forward."
And he warned that even the target for Lifetime Homes to be mandatory for all public sector homes by 2011 was now not guaranteed.
He said there was "considerable concern" that the government would bow to demands from housing developers for a "lighter regulatory touch" because of the state of the economy.
No-one from the Communities and Local Government department was available to comment.
The disabled peer Baroness Rosalie Wilkins, a patron of the foundation, has called on the government to consider "the range of social, health, welfare and economic savings" made by adopting the Lifetime Homes Standard.
During a Lords debate on affordable housing, she added: "In developing their social care policy, will the government include the benefits of the universal adoption of the Lifetime Homes Standard as an efficient way to support care delivery in the home?"
Baroness Hanham, the junior communities and local government minister, said that the Lifetime Homes Standard "remains an aspiration that should be met, even if not for every single home".
8 July 2010
New European laws should boost accessible travel by boat
New laws approved by MEPs should make it easier for disabled people across Europe to travel by boat, and could also mean new rights to accessible bus and coach travel.
The regulations approved by the European Parliament will mean that transport providers will not be able to deny a disabled person the right to board a boat, unless it would be unsafe or the design of the ship or port made it impossible.
Ports and ships will also have to provide free assistance to disabled people - as long as they are given at least 48 hours' notice.
There should also be full compensation for lost or damaged mobility equipment or assistive devices.
And important information about the journey, such as delays and cancellations, should be made available in accessible formats, while the complaints process should also be accessible.
All passenger boats carrying more than 12 passengers will have to obey the new laws, which are set to come into force in 2012, although there will be some exceptions, such as excursions and sightseeing tours.
The European Parliament also approved new laws that would provide free assistance to disabled bus and coach passengers.
But the bus and coach regulations have yet to be approved by the individual EU member states, with negotiations likely to take place this summer.
Campaigners are hoping the regulations will include compensation for lost or damaged mobility equipment, and a duty to provide key information in an accessible format, if they finally become law.
The European Disability Forum (EDF) welcomed both sets of proposals.
An EDF spokeswoman said: "European law applicable in all EU countries is the best way to ensure that disabled people will enjoy a comparable travel experience as everyone else."
She said that disabled passengers face a "multitude" of barriers with transport infrastructure, vehicle design and staff attitudes, despite the European Union treaty guaranteeing freedom of movement to all EU citizens.
She said there was a "serious lack of information" in accessible formats, poor levels of assistance, and "difficult physical access".
But she warned that some companies would probably "not respect" the new laws, so disabled people would have to take legal action to enforce their rights, as they did with the EU's air passenger laws, which came into force in 2008.
The EDF called on the disability movement to lobby national governments to back the bus and coach proposals.
7 July 2010
Disabled campaigner nominated for UN role
A leading disabled campaigner has been nominated by the UK government to join the worldwide body that monitors how countries are implementing the UN disability convention.
Diane Mulligan was put forward by Maria Miller, the minister for disabled people, as the UK candidate to join the UN expert committee on the rights of disabled people.
If she is elected in 2012, she will become one of the 12 human rights experts who monitor how the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is being implemented around the world.
Mulligan is a long-standing member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission's (EHRC) disability committee, and leads its work on the UN convention, representing it in Europe and at the UN.
She was also appointed this year to the government's network of disability equality advisers, Equality 2025, and in January was recognised with an OBE for nearly 20 years' work with disabled people in developing countries and in the UK.
Mulligan is a former director of the charity VSO in Indonesia, set up the Sussex Amputee Support Group, and is an advisor on disability and social inclusion for the development charity Sightsavers.
Mike Smith, chair of the EHRC's disability committee, said: "It's a huge credit to the work that Diane has done on disabled people's rights that she is being put forward by the minister as a candidate for the UN committee for 2012.
"She'll be up against candidates from around the world who are also leaders in this field."
He said the EHRC, Foreign Office, Office for Disability Issues, disabled people's organisations and others would support her through the selection process.
7 July 2010
New guide calls for community action on hate crime
Disabled people and disabled people's organisations (DPOs) must do more to raise awareness of disability hate crime in their local areas, according to a new publication.
The online guide, published by the United Kingdom Disabled People's Council (UKDPC), describes how to report a disability hate crime and where victims can find support.
It says disabled people should report any crimes they believe are related to their impairment, including harassment, theft, verbal abuse, physical assaults, arson, graffiti, offensive letters and malicious complaints.
The guide says: "The more people who do this the more records there will be of what we experience and then more and better plans will be made to deal with it."
And it says that disabled people and DPOs can make a "huge difference locally and nationally by raising the issue of disability hate crime".
Anne Novis, who leads on disability hate crime issues for UKDPC and collated the information in the guide, said it was important for DPOs and their allies to provide services, influence the way hate crime was dealt with, and join local partnerships involved in tackling hate crime, such as hate crime panels and crime reduction panels.
She said: "A lot of DPOs and individuals just don't know where to start around this issue. They want to do work on it but they haven't got any money so they don't know how to get involved."
The guide describes how DPOs can become "third party reporting sites", taking reports of disability hate crime from disabled people and then passing them on to the police.
And it calls on disabled people to become involved with the police as independent advisors or community representatives, and to contact their local politicians to raise awareness about disability hate crime.
The guide also calls on disabled people and DPOs to take part in the Equality and Human Rights Commission's inquiry into disability-related harassment.
For a copy of the report, visit:
www.ukdpc.net/library/Disability%20Hate%20Crime,%20How%20to%20Get%20Involved%20Guide%20PDF%20version3.pdf
6 July 2010
Welfare reforms 'could breach government's UN duties'
The government's welfare reforms could cause it to breach its obligations to disabled people under the UN disability convention, peers have suggested.
Baroness Jane Campbell said the government's disability living allowance (DLA) reforms and the closure of the Independent Living Fund to new applicants could lead to a breach of its duties under the UN Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities.
She said the government had a duty under the convention to ensure disabled people had an adequate standard of living, and pointed out that a third of disabled people already live below the poverty line, even before the extra costs of disability are taken into account.
Lord Freud, the Conservative welfare reform minister, said the government was on "a journey towards complete equality for disabled people".
He added: "It would be naive to claim that within one bound we shall produce total equality. This has been a long journey, which started many years ago.
"We are committed to press on and make sure that as we move ahead we produce greater equality and improve the lot of disabled people steadily as the years progress."
Baroness Greengross, a member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, asked whether, in the light of government welfare reform announcements around incapacity benefit (IB) and DLA, planned cuts to public spending could impede the implementation of the UN convention.
Lord Freud said that "in our welfare reforms we will look precisely at making sure that those who need support the most continue to receive it".
Lord Knight, a Labour peer, asked how the government had involved disabled people in decisions which would cut £360 million from the DLA budget in 2013 and more than £1 billion in 2014.
Lord Freud said the government would "go through the normal budget processes in terms of ensuring that equality and human rights issues are dealt with".
6 July 2010
News Stories from the week ending 2 July 2010
Government to review impact of welfare reforms
The government has ordered a review of how its package of welfare reforms will affect disabled people.
Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith announced the "strategic review" following growing anger among disabled people at repeated government references to the need to cut spending on disability benefits, as well as concerns about other welfare reforms and threatened cuts to public spending.
Duncan Smith claimed he had ordered the review because he was "committed to ensuring that disabled people and carers receive the support that they deserve".
The review will look at the impact of scrapping Labour's employment support programmes and replacing them with a single work programme, as well as reforms around incapacity benefits and disability living allowance, among other measures.
The review was announced during the final day of the budget debate - although it was not publicised by the government - and will be carried out by the Conservative minister for disabled people, Maria Miller.
Duncan Smith said Miller would take a "principled look" at the support provided for disabled people, "to ensure that the effect of all the measures is appropriate and that they work".
A spokeswoman for the Department for Work and Pensions said afterwards: "The secretary of state has asked the minister for disabled people to conduct a strategic review of how proposed welfare reforms will impact on disabled people and carers as a key part of her role.
"She will maintain an ongoing dialogue with the secretary of state on this moving forward to ensure that the interests of disabled people are looked after as we make fundamental reforms to the welfare system."
Neil Coyle, director of policy for Disability Alliance (DA), welcomed the announcement. He said DA had called for such a review in its response to last week's emergency budget.
Anne Kane, policy manager for Inclusion London, said she hoped the review would be "serious" and that disabled people's organisations would be able "to make it clear how damaging the impact of these changes threaten to be".
1 July 2010
Conservatives attack DLA spending - again
Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith has launched another government attack on disability living allowance (DLA), claiming that spending on the key disability benefit had "spiralled out of control".
Duncan Smith told MPs during the final day of the budget debate that the DLA system had been "vulnerable to error, abuse and, in some cases, outright fraud".
His comments followed last week's comments about spending on DLA - using similar language - in George Osborne's budget statement.
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures show spending on DLA has risen in real terms from £6.7 billion in 1997/98 to an estimated £11.7 billion in 2009/10.
DWP figures also show that estimated DLA fraud for 2009/10 was £60 million, just 0.5 per cent of the money spent on DLA.
Estimated incapacity benefit (IB) fraud was also just 0.5 per cent, or £30 million.
These figures compare with far higher levels of fraud among claimants of income support (2.8 per cent, £240 million), jobseeker's allowance (2.5 per cent, £120 million) and carer's allowance (3.9 per cent, £60 million).
Duncan Smith also confirmed that the government would implement new rules agreed by MPs last year, which will allow severely visually-impaired people to claim the higher rate of the mobility component of DLA, instead of the lower rate.
The new rules will come into effect in April 2011 and should mean an extra £30.90 a week for about 22,000 people.
Later in the debate, Conservative MP Stewart Jackson complained that 6,000 of his constituents "languish" on DLA, and "most shockingly, more than 1,000 of them languished on that particular benefit for more than 12 years".
Maria Eagle, Labour's former disabled people's minister, said: "People who work receive DLA. It is not a benefit that one languishes upon. It is a recognition from society that disabled people need a little extra support to enable them to participate in life."
She said the introduction of a new medical test for those on DLA "looks like harassment", and appeared to be a way of cutting the number of people on DLA by a fifth in order to save money.
Following the debate, Anne Kane, policy manager for Inclusion London, said the government had clearly been trying to condition people, including MPs, to accept that cuts to the IB and DLA budgets were "unavoidable" and "necessary", when they were not.
1 July 2010
Briefing throws incapacity benefit plans into confusion
The coalition's welfare plans have been thrown into confusion after two government departments appeared to be delivering contrasting messages about the speed of its reforms.
The chancellor, George Osborne, told reporters that he wanted to reduce spending on benefits such as housing benefit and incapacity benefit (IB), and its replacement, employment and support allowance, in order to avoid cuts in other government departments.
But several national newspapers also reported that the chancellor wanted to speed up the process of reassessing all those still claiming old-style IB.
The coalition government announced last month that it would reassess a small number of people claiming IB through a "small trial", starting this October. The trial will take place in Burnley and Aberdeen.
A "national reassessment programme" will run from spring 2011 to March 2014, with the first letters likely to be sent out to disabled people next February.
This is likely to mean about 10,000 people on IB every week being reassessed through the much-criticised work capability assessment (WCA), usually at the time their benefit review is due.
A Treasury spokesman said he could not confirm or deny who briefed journalists about the chancellor's wish to speed up this process.
A Department for Work and Pensions spokeswoman denied any plans to speed up reassessment, and said: "There have not been any changes from our end. We are not moving from 10,000 a week."
Neil Coyle, director of policy for Disability Alliance, said the continuing uncertainty following a string of welfare reform announcements was "extremely unhealthy and unhelpful", while the government could still speed up the process at a future date.
But he said the key problem was not with the speed of the scheme, but with the need to ensure the system "gets things right". He said: "The problem is the assessment. The assessment is not effective."
Employment minister Chris Grayling this week announced changes to the WCA, which will mean fewer people with severe mental health conditions and all those waiting for or between courses of chemotherapy no longer being asked to attend a WCA.
Coyle welcomed the changes and said they could ease the problems in the system, and cut costs.
Grayling also said that an independent review of the WCA - headed by occupational health expert Professor Malcolm Harrington - would be completed by the end of 2010.
1 July 2010
New Scottish law is step on road to better access to pubs
A new law which could improve access to pubs and clubs in Scotland has been passed by the Scottish Parliament.
The law will force bars to provide details of their access when applying for new licences or major changes to their licensing conditions.
Local councils will publish the statements on their websites, so disabled people can check out access at a pub or club before they visit.
The new law was included as an amendment to the criminal justice and licensing (Scotland) bill, which was passed by the Scottish parliament this week.
The amendment was lodged by MSP George Foulkes, who took up the issue after being approached by wheelchair-user Mark Cooper, from Edinburgh.
Cooper launched a successful Facebook campaign for better access - Barred! - after being told by an Edinburgh pub that it had no accessible toilet, even though it had level access.
Cooper's campaign was taken up and expanded by the disability charity Capability Scotland, which now employs him as a parliamentary and policy officer.
Cooper said he was "delighted" that campaigners' hard work had paid off, and said the new law would ensure that "disabled people can make informed choices about where they go to socialise".
He added: "I think it will make a tremendous difference because it will allow disabled people to plan and enjoy a night out and not have to figure out the barriers that could occur."
Jim Elder-Woodward, convenor of Independent Living in Scotland, a disabled people's organisation set up to develop the independent living movement in Scotland, praised the Barred! campaign but said the new law was "only a start" towards making it easier for disabled and non-disabled people to meet and relate to one another.
He said pubs and bars had been "central to the British way of socialising for generations" but "for many disabled people, they have been no-man's land".
He said: "The inaccessibility of most bars and pubs has cut off vital resources in disabled people's attempts to integrate and participate in their local communities.
"Irrespective of the amount of time spent in sharing work or educational experiences, it is only by sharing social time with non-disabled people, that the real barriers between them and disabled people can come tumbling down."
1 July 2010
New disabled MP criticised over views on inclusion
Westminster's newest disabled MP has been criticised after attacking the "dogmatic" views of campaigners for inclusive education.
The Conservative MP Paul Maynard - believed to be the first former special school pupil to become an MP - spent two years at a special school from the age of three, before spending the rest of his education in mainstream schools.
He told Disability News Service: "Saying we need to have inclusion because segregating people is wrong overlooks the fact that some people may need specialist provision, which is only available in special needs schools."
The new MP's views mirror those laid out by his party in its general election manifesto, which pledged to "end the bias towards the inclusion of children with special needs in mainstream schools" and called for a "moratorium on the ideologically-driven closure of special schools".
Maynard, who received two years of intensive therapy in a special school before transferring to a mainstream primary school, where he received several years of speech therapy, said he had "seen both sides of the coin".
But Tara Flood, chief executive of the Alliance for Inclusive Education (ALLFIE), said his comments were "unhelpful" and his experience was very different from "the majority of special school survivors".
She said: "I don't think two years at the very beginning of his life can really be the basis of support for special schools. He had the benefit of a full, full-time, formal mainstream education."
She said research showed that time spent in a special school had a lifetime negative impact, with former special school pupils less likely to move on to further and higher education or to be in work.
Maynard, the MP for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, said: "We need to stop trying to fit children into this tick-box approach and build services around the needs of each child."
When asked why such provision could not be provided in a mainstream setting, he pointed to a special school in his constituency, which had a "fantastic hydrotherapy suite".
He said: "I do not think you can expect public money to fund fantastic hydrotherapy facilities in each mainstream school just to facilitate an ideologically-based inclusion agenda.
"Would that we had a money tree in the garden. In the age of tighter public spending, it is even harder still."
But Flood said it was not cost-effective to have such expensive facilities in special schools, either.
She said: "It cannot be cost-effective that the reason someone goes to a segregated environment is to access a warmer-than-usual swimming pool."
Flood said Maynard's experience was "fundamentally different" to that of those disabled people who spent their entire education in special schools.
She added: "We would be delighted to work with Mr Maynard to help him understand that."
1 July 2010
Stevie Wonder's Glastonbury access plea
Soul legend Stevie Wonder has delivered a plea to "make the world more accessible", at the end of his headlining appearance at the Glastonbury music festival.
The singer-songwriter, who is blind, had performed some of his classic hits, including Higher Ground, Superstition and Happy Birthday, in front of an estimated crowd of 100,000 people on the final day of the festival.
But as he finished his set, he appealed to the crowd to "encourage the world to make the world more accessible for those who are physically challenged".
To a roar of approval from the crowd, he added: "Make it more accessible. Let there be nowhere that I cannot go being blind, or one cannot go being deaf, or someone cannot go being paraplegic or quadriplegic.
"Make it accessible so that we can celebrate the world as well as you can."
The musician has a long track record of campaigning on civil and human rights issues, and raising funds for disability and other causes.
Elsewhere at the festival, Attitude is Everything (AIE), which campaigns for better access to live music for disabled people, showcased several Deaf and disabled musicians and DJs on one of the open air stages.
Performers included Bug Prentice and La Rebla Fam, both of which have disabled band members, and Deaf Rave DJs MC Geezer, DJ Inigo and DJ Ceri.
Other disabled musicians who appeared at the festival included the Congolese band Staff Benda Bilili and Mystery Jets, whose frontman Blaine Harrison is disabled.
AIE also provided 10 Deaf and disabled stewards to assist disabled festival-goers on the accessible campsite and on the viewing platforms.
Suzanne Bull, chief executive of AIE, said it was too early to evaluate access at this year's festival, but she added: "Glastonbury work very hard to do the best that they can. They are open to the suggestions and feedback and evaluation that we give them."
She pointed to notices written by festival founder Michael Eavis on the doors of the accessible toilets, asking non-disabled people not to use them.
She said: "What is changing is that they are asking the question now instead of us bringing it up."
She added: "They are not just talking about disabled audiences anymore, they are talking about artists, too."
1 July 2010
Disabled delegation set to pull out of Pride over access
The national LGBT disabled people's organisation is set to pull out of London's annual gay rights parade this weekend, because they say organisers have failed to make vital access arrangements.
Regard produced a report after last year's Pride London event, describing access as "difficult and dangerous" - which organisers have denied - with many arrangements agreed in advance not put into place on the day.
This year, despite repeated complaints and questions directed at the organisers by Regard members, detailed information about accessible transport only appeared on the Pride website this week, just hours after questions were asked by Disability News Service and only five days before the event was due to take place.
Regard says organisers have also failed to arrange any reserved accessible parking.
Regard is now compiling a file on the continuing access problems at Pride London stretching back at least ten years, to present to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
One Regard member said she was one of "no doubt many disabled lesbians who have given up on the idea of travelling to London to take part in Pride".
She said she and her partner "just cannot risk turning up and not being able to get the support that we might need", and had emailed organisers for information several weeks ago but received no reply.
Dr Ju Gosling, co-chair of Regard, said: "I know how miserable I felt when I was really ill in July 2000, and found for the first time since coming out that Pride wouldn't be accessible to me.
"I really wanted to be at Pride, to show that I couldn't be made to feel ashamed of being either gay or disabled, however much I was punished for it. But instead I sat at home in tears.
"It makes me very sad that, ten years on, nothing has really changed despite many years of hard work by LGBT disabled people.
"And it makes me angry that disabled people are still having to fight for equality at so many levels within the community."
No-one from Pride London, or the office of the Mayor, one of the event's main sponsors, or Westminster council, which licenses the event, was available to comment.
1 July 2010
London's Dial-a-Ride still 'plagued by problems'
London's door-to-door transport service for disabled people continues to be "plagued" by "significant problems", according to a new report.
The London Assembly's transport committee investigated the performance of Dial-a-Ride - London's largest door-to-door service, provided free to its 50,000 members - last year after "many complaints" from users.
Now a follow-up report by the committee says concerns remain around availability, efficiency, the booking process and consultation with users, although overall performance has improved "slightly".
In a survey carried out by the committee earlier this year, one in four users said the service provided by Dial-a-Ride was either poor or very poor.
The report says the telephone booking service is a "source of frustration" to users, with two thirds of those surveyed saying they had had to wait at least ten minutes for a booking call to be answered, or did not have their call answered at all.
Although some aspects of the service have improved, the service is still providing fewer journeys (1.25 million) than it did in 2001/02 (1.26 million), against a target of 1.4 million.
In its evidence to the investigation, the campaigning accessible transport charity Transport for All said it continued to be concerned that Dial-a-Ride was "seen as the poor family relation" by Transport for London (TfL).
Transport for All said it feared standards could slip further if funding was not increased, and called for more coordination between Dial-a-Ride and London's community transport sector.
Caroline Pidgeon, deputy chair of the transport committee, called on TfL and the mayor, Boris Johnson, to take action to improve the service.
A TfL spokeswoman accepted there had been problems with Dial-a-Ride, including with the booking system.
But she said: "Dial-a-Ride services are getting better and we are pleased the transport committee report reflects the improvements made in the last year.
"There has been an increase in the demand for the service and last year we completed 76,000 more trips compared to the previous year."
She added: "Of course we are not complacent and will continue to make improvements to the service."
She said TfL was awaiting the outcome of a review of door-to-door services being carried out by London Councils, which represents the capital's local authorities.
The transport committee is also carrying out a wider investigation into how to improve access to public transport for people with mobility impairments, with a report due early next year.
30 June 2010
Healthcare battle for direct payments could be over at last
A woman who lost a legal battle for the right to use direct payments to manage her long-term condition has welcomed a new pilot project that should allow her to continue controlling how her healthcare is provided.
Valerie Garnham was one of two disabled people who were forced to drop a court case against the government earlier this year.
Garnham, from Islington, north London, and Steven Harrison, from Yorkshire, argued that the government acted unlawfully and breached their human rights by not allowing them to manage their continuing healthcare through direct payments.
But they had to drop their appeal when the Department of Health said new laws which would only allow direct payments for healthcare through official pilot schemes were to come into force the day before their case was to be heard.
This week, the government announced the first eight primary care trusts (PCTs) - including Islington - that will take part in the pilot schemes to "road test" direct payments for personal health budgets. More trusts are expected to join the scheme later this year.
PCTs that take part will be able to give money directly to individuals, allowing them to decide how they receive their healthcare, in partnership with the local NHS.
Garnham has been receiving direct payments from Islington PCT for several years, but two years ago the PCT told her she would have to receive her healthcare through an agency, because of new government guidance.
Garnham welcomed this week's announcement and said she was keen to work with the PCT to make the pilot scheme a success. She said the pilots should give her and other disabled people "choice and self-autonomy", and save money.
She added: "I do feel it's a victory. Our court case highlighted the situation and brought it to public notice."
Her solicitor, Frances Lipman, from Disability Law Service, welcomed the new pilots, and said: "Islington have always been cooperative and wanted Valerie to have a direct payment, but just felt constrained by the legislation. It is good news that PCTs like Islington are keen to make it work."
She said Garnham had proved that direct payments for continuing healthcare could work.
Lipman has encouraged other disabled people to press their PCTs to take part in the pilot scheme.
Islington PCT welcomed the announcement, but said it was too early to confirm who would be taking part in its pilot, which will be smaller than others given the go-ahead by the government.
Paul Burstow, the Liberal Democrat care services minister, said: "There is strong evidence from the social care sector that direct payments help achieve better outcomes, and give people more choice and control over the care they receive."
He said the new programme would "stop healthcare from slipping back to the days of one-dimensional, like-it-or-lump-it services".
30 June 2010
Government's benefits bashing 'could lead to hate crime'
Activists have warned that repeated government references to the need to slash the disability benefits bill could lead to a rise in disability hate crime.
The government is making it increasingly clear that the more money it can save from its benefits bill, the less it will have to cut from other areas of spending.
Speaking to journalists at the G20 summit in Canada, the chancellor, George Osborne, highlighted incapacity benefit and housing benefit as two large budgets that the government wanted to cut.
The comments followed his emergency budget, in which he stressed the cost of spending on disability living allowance (DLA).
Anne Novis, a leading national campaigner on disability hate crime, said she was "appalled and dismayed" at the government's "targeted hostility" towards disabled people.
She said: "The ignorance around what DLA is and how it supports disabled people with the recognised extra cost of being a disabled person is perpetuating a myth that disabled people have it easy, get everything free and have an easy life.
"It reinforces the attitude that some have towards us that we are a burden on the state and should be got rid of or marginalised into more poverty by such extreme measures."
Novis said the government appeared to have no understanding of the importance of DLA to disabled people and how crucial it was in promoting independent living.
She said disabled people were experiencing increasing physical and verbal assaults "due to everyone believing the myth perpetuated by many MPs and ministers that disability and sickness fraud is extremely high, when this is not the case".
DWP figures show that estimated DLA fraud for 2009/10 was £60 million, just 0.5 per cent of the money spent on DLA. Estimated incapacity benefit (IB) fraud was also just 0.5 per cent, or £30 million.
These figures compare with far higher levels of fraud among claimants of income support (2.8 per cent, £240 million), jobseeker's allowance (2.5 per cent, £120 million) and carer's allowance (3.9 per cent, £60 million).
Stephen Brookes, joint chair of the disabled members' council of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and another leading anti-hate crime campaigner, emailed NUJ colleagues this week to say he was becoming "deeply concerned" at the growing numbers of "sensational headlines and stories about disability 'scroungers' and 'benefit cheats'".
He said the government was spreading the message that "if only they can stop 'disabled benefits cheats' then other cuts won't have to be so bad".
Brookes warned that such stories could create a "serious discriminatory attitude which will clearly lead to abuse of disabled people".
29 June 2010
Government pledges improvements to wheelchair services
The government has admitted there are "unacceptable" variations in the quality of wheelchair services across the country.
Paul Burstow, the Liberal Democrat care services minister, said many disabled people experienced a "poor" service, with long waiting-times and "far too much off-the-shelf or 'like it or lump it' provision".
His comments came in a Commons debate on wheelchair services, secured by Labour MP David Anderson, who chairs the all party parliamentary group on muscular dystrophy.
It followed last week's Commons launch of the Get Moving report by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, which called for improved wheelchair services.
The report includes a string of examples of disabled people who have had problems obtaining the right wheelchair.
Burstow, who attended the launch of the report, said he had been left "in no doubt that wheelchair services is an area that really does require improvement", while there needed to be "real improvement in extending personalisation to wheelchair services".
He said it was common for people to wait months for a wheelchair, and not uncommon for them to wait years for a powered wheelchair, with an "unacceptable" degree of regional variation in the standard of services.
Burstow added: "The majority of wheelchair services are provided by the National Health Service, and should be subject to consistent, national standards, applied by local commissioners to the needs of individual populations."
And he said his jaw "nearly hit the floor" when he discovered that 57 per cent of wheelchair budgets were eaten up by administration costs.
He said that two pilot projects in the east and south-west of England - announced by the Labour government in March - would "sow the seeds for best practice to take root across the whole NHS".
The pilots were the latest in a series of efforts by the Labour government to improve wheelchair services.
In 2002, it launched a "Wheelchair Services Collaborative", a partnership between the Department of Health and the NHS Modernisation Agency that aimed to "support significant improvements in NHS wheelchair services".
And in 2006, prime minister Tony Blair announced that a Transforming Community Equipment and Wheelchair Services programme would aim to find a new way of delivering equipment, with a bigger role for charities.
29 June 2010
Disability sports bodies welcome plans for national schools event
Disability sports organisations have welcomed government plans for a national school sports competition modelled on the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The competition was launched this week by Jeremy Hunt, secretary of state for culture, media and sport, who said he wanted to "harness Olympic and Paralympic values to revive the culture of competitive sports in every school in Britain".
Primary and secondary schools will start taking part in new district leagues from January 2011, with up to £10 million lottery funding.
Successful teams or individual athletes will take part in up to 60 county or city-level finals, with the most talented athletes selected to represent their school at a national Olympic and Paralympic-style event.
The first national finals are set to take place on the eve of the 2012 Olympics in London's new Olympic stadium.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said there would be a "Paralympic element" at every level of the competition for young disabled people.
There are no details yet on how disabled children in mainstream schools will take part, with Hunt saying he would be talking to Paralympics GB - the charity that runs Britain's Paralympics teams - about "how we can best bring the benefits of the scheme to young disabled people".
Martin McElhatton, chief executive of WheelPower, the national wheelchair sports charity, said the plans sounded "very exciting".
But he said he would need to hear more detail about how much of the funding would be devoted to disability sports and how it would work for disabled children in mainstream schools, as well as for those in special schools.
He said disabled children in mainstream settings do not always find out about sporting opportunities available to them.
And he said it would be important to make sure that the new competitions fit into the opportunities already available for disabled children.
McElhatton said disability and mainstream sports bodies were already working on how to ensure competitive opportunities for disabled people from beginners up to Paralympic level.
He added: "We are looking forward to hearing what it means in reality and how it will work."
ParalympicsGB welcomed the inclusion of a Paralympic element to the competition.
But a ParalympicsGB spokeswoman said: "Clearly the implementation of the Paralympic element isn't as straightforward as the Olympic element as many disabled children are integrated into mainstream schools, meaning inter-school competition will be harder to achieve in terms of numbers, but we support the ambition and are looking forward to working with DCMS on the plans."
29 June 2010
News Stories from the week ending 25 June 2010
EMERGENCY BUDGET: DLA reforms will 'hit disabled people hard'
Disabled campaigners have reacted with anger and concern to the government's plans to reform disability living allowance (DLA), and introduce a new medical test for claimants.
From 2013, all existing working-age claimants will be reassessed using the new test, which will also apply to all new DLA claimants, while the government also looks set to tighten eligibility criteria as part of plans to slash the welfare budget.
Announcing the plans as part of his emergency budget on Tuesday, the chancellor, George Osborne, said the costs of DLA had quadrupled to more than £11 billion, making it "one of the largest items of government spending".
He said the new assessment would allow the government to "continue to afford paying this important benefit to those with the greatest needs, while significantly improving incentives to work for others".
London's new Deaf and disabled people's organisation said disabled people would be "hit hard" by the plans.
Anne Kane, policy manager for Inclusion London, said the changes would "intensify the poverty and disadvantage facing disabled people", while the impact would be increased by other changes announced in the budget, including huge reductions in public spending, an increase in VAT to 20 per cent and cuts to other benefits.
She said it was clear the government intended to ensure that fewer people qualified for DLA.
Kane said DLA was intended to contribute to - but not cover - the extra costs of disability, and was "already subject to stringent qualifications".
She said: "Already disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty as non-disabled people. Today's budget will make this worse."
The National Centre for Independent Living (NCIL) said the chancellor's argument that DLA prevented people working was "bizarre" and "ridiculous".
Sue Bott, NCIL's director, said she feared that people with hidden impairments "may well be the ones who end up paying for all this" because they would find it harder to prove they were disabled.
She suggested that the number of people claiming DLA might have risen because there was now less stigma attached to being a disabled person.
And she said the move to reassess current claimants would "cost a fortune", including the cost of the "inevitable" appeals.
Bott said: "We need to be making our points about the impact that DLA has on individual disabled people's lives and how important it is. We need to do a bit of educating."
RADAR criticised the announcement of "yet another assessment regime", and said that making it harder to claim DLA was "not the way to encourage people into the job market".
Liz Sayce, RADAR's chief executive, said DLA had "no connection with employment whatsoever".
She added: "We will continue to campaign for one point of entry and assessment for all benefits and related support for disabled people - we want to make the anxiety introduced by multiple assessments history."
Disability Alliance (DA), the disability poverty charity, said the budget and previous government announcements "raise the spectre of grinding poverty and increased social isolation for disabled people and their families".
DA said the government's austerity package risked "a significant assault on support for disabled people", who were "being hit fastest, hardest and will suffer longest from the impact of the new government's reaction to the nation's finances".
Vanessa Stanislas, DA's chief executive, added: "The government must tackle the budget deficit, but Disability Alliance is deeply concerned that 'tough action' has not been spread evenly across government and society.
"Instead, today's cuts will be felt by our most disadvantaged citizens who are not responsible for the banking crisis but will now suffer its harshest consequences."
Adrian Whyatt, chair of Neurodiversity International and co-chair of the Autistic Rights Movement UK, accused the government of deliberately attacking disabled people, particularly those with invisible impairments.
He pointed to research by the National Autistic Society which found more than 30 per cent of adults with autism had "no income at all" from benefits or employment "because of the practically total inaccessibility of the job market and the benefits system to them".
He said the budget would make the situation "even worse" and that the government had now "lost all legitimacy" among disabled people, particularly those with invisible impairments.
He said: "Why should poor, sick and disabled people pay for the 'banksters' and corrupt politicians, consultants and cronies and the mess they have made of the world?"
The Disability Benefits Consortium (DBC) - a coalition of disability and welfare advice organisations - said it believed the budget would have a "disproportionate impact on disabled people".
The DBC said the DLA changes would increase the number of disabled people living in poverty, while the new test would create "additional stress and anxiety" for claimants, and lead to unnecessary bureaucracy and increased costs through the new assessments and appeals.
The DBC said it was also concerned about the chancellor's decision to uprate benefits annually in line with rises in consumer prices instead of retail prices - which the chancellor said would cut more than £6 billion a year from the benefits budget by 2015.
The DBC said it was worried that "priority has been given to saving money over ensuring sufficient support for disabled people".
24 June 2010
EMERGENCY BUDGET: Government set to restrict DLA eligibility
The government is set to launch a major reform of disability living allowance (DLA) - with tighter eligibility, a new medical test and reassessments for all claimants of working age.
The chancellor, George Osborne, announced in his emergency budget on Tuesday that the new medical test would be applied to "new and existing" DLA claimants from 2013.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said later that reassessments of existing DLA claimants would only apply to adults of working age.
A DWP spokeswoman told Disability News Service: "It has not been ruled out that we would look at other claimants of DLA later on. We might, we might not."
The announcement was one of a series of measures designed to deal with what Osborne said was the "staggering" increase of £60 billion in the welfare budget over the last ten years.
He said the annual cost of DLA had quadrupled to more than £11 billion and that he wanted to improve "incentives to work".
He also announced budget cuts of an average 25 per cent for all government departments - apart from health and international development - which the Institute for Fiscal Studies later said would lead to "the longest, deepest sustained period of cuts to public services spending at least since World War Two".
Inclusion London said the DLA changes would be "bad for disabled people and bad for equality", while Disability Alliance said the government's austerity package raised "the spectre of grinding poverty and increased social isolation for disabled people and their families".
Further details obtained by Disability News Service appear to confirm that the government wants to make it harder for disabled people to claim DLA, a key benefit in helping disabled people live independently.
The DWP spokeswoman said current spending on DLA was "unsustainable" and the new "more objective" assessment would make DLA "fairer and ensure its financial sustainability", with support "targeted on those with greatest need".
Asked if this would mean stricter criteria, in order to cut the number of people claiming DLA, she said: "It looks like that is the way it could go if they want to reduce the numbers on the benefit. I think so, yes."
Budget documents also make it clear the government intends to tighten eligibility, stating that DLA reform would "ensure support is targeted on those with the highest medical need".
RADAR and the National Centre for Independent Living are among those that have raised serious concerns over Osborne's suggestion that receiving DLA could lower a disabled person's incentive to find a job. DLA is intended to help with the extra costs of disability, and has no connection with whether the recipient is in work.
But in his budget statement, Osborne said the reforms would mean "we can continue to afford paying this important benefit to those with the greatest needs, while significantly improving incentives to work for others".
The DWP spokeswoman said the government was committed to ensuring that DLA "improves work incentives and encourages responsibility and fairness".
She added: "How the work incentives element will play out is still to be worked out."
The DWP also confirmed that there would be an entirely new medical assessment for DLA claimants, which would be separate to the much-criticised work capability assessment (WCA), the new test for out-of-work disability benefits.
The DWP said it would "use some of the learning we have had from implementing the WCA, but it would be a different assessment".
24 June 2010
EMERGENCY BUDGET: Benefit change welcomed but housing crisis remains
New rules announced in this week's emergency budget will allow disabled people who need an extra bedroom for a personal assistant to claim housing benefit for the additional cost.
Campaigners had complained that the rules on local housing allowance (LHA) -which determine how much housing benefit is paid to those renting from private landlords - do not allow disabled people who need an overnight support worker to claim for the cost of an extra bedroom.
Councils can make "discretionary" payments to cover the extra costs, but these are short-term and only paid if the council has sufficient funds.
The disabled Labour peer Baroness Wilkins had told the Commons work and pensions committee that the rules were causing "real hardship and loss of control".
The chancellor, George Osborne, announced in his budget statement that the government would now "cover the cost of an additional room for those claimants with a disability who need a carer".
Budget documents released on the same day reveal that the change will be introduced from April 2011.
Despite widespread criticism of the impact of other budget measures on disabled people, the LHA announcement was welcomed by disabled people's organisations.
Liz Sayce, chief executive of RADAR, said: "This is something RADAR has campaigned for and we are delighted the government has listened on this significant issue for people who face considerable disadvantage."
But RADAR warned there was still a "real housing crisis facing disabled people", with a shortage of accessible, affordable housing.
The charity said that LHA restrictions announced in the budget - saving £1.8 billion a year by 2015 - could "drive disabled people further into inaccessible housing, making them prisoners in their house".
The Disability Benefits Consortium (DBC) - a coalition of disability and welfare advice organisations - also welcomed the move to allow disabled people to claim housing benefit for an extra room for an overnight support worker.
But it joined RADAR in warning that the package of housing benefit cuts announced in the budget "risks leaving many disabled people unable to afford suitable accommodation".
Rebecca Rennison, senior policy officer at Leonard Cheshire Disability and co-chair of the DBC policy group, said that LHA provides "vital support to many disabled people on low incomes".
She added: "If the government is serious about tackling disability poverty it has to ensure that all disabled people are able to access suitable and affordable housing."
24 June 2010
Parents who locked children in bedrooms 'did not breach rights'
A high court judge has ruled that two sets of parents are not breaching the human rights of their disabled children by locking them in their bedrooms at night.
Both the disabled people - a nine-year-old girl and a 22-year-old woman - have Smith-Magenis syndrome, which causes self-harm, destructive behaviour and disturbed sleep. In both cases, the parents decided they could only guarantee the safety of their daughter by locking her bedroom door every night, the court was told.
The local authority for the area where both families live had asked the court whether locking them in their rooms was an unlawful deprivation of their liberty, under article five of the European Convention on Human Rights.
But Lord Justice Munby made it clear that both sets of parents in the case had provided "devoted and exemplary care", that there was no "deprivation of liberty" in either case, and that locking their bedroom doors at night was "quite plainly" in their best interests.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which intervened in the case as an independent expert, but did not examine the cases of the two families, told the court that any local authority that learns of a real risk of "deprivation of liberty" must investigate and appoint an advocate for the person at risk.
If the council or advocate decides there is potential "deprivation of liberty", the council must ask the court to rule on whether it is unlawful, said the EHRC.
The EHRC told the court that such a system provides protection to a "potentially large number of vulnerable children and adults".
Lord Justice Munby agreed with the EHRC, but made it clear that parents remain in control of how they bring up their children, despite the council's obligations.
He said a council's duties and powers were limited to investigating, providing support services and, if appropriate, referring the matter to court.
An EHRC spokeswoman said after the judgement was published this week that the ruling had been useful because it "clarifies the law around the local authority's role" in such situations.
John Wadham, the EHRC's group legal director, said the case provided a "timely reminder that only in exceptional circumstances can authorities override the decisions of loving parents".
24 June 2010
Minister could reform ILF over closure controversy
The new minister for disabled people has suggested the government could reform the Independent Living Fund (ILF), following its decision to stop accepting any new applications for the rest of the year.
Speaking at a meeting of the all-party parliamentary disability group, Maria Miller MP suggested the government could change the way the ILF was run and said its problems could have been caused by a "failure of management".
Last week, the ILF - which is funded by the government and supports disabled people with high support needs to live independently - admitted it would only be able to fund 600 of the 1,000 new awards it had intended to make this year.
Its announcement in March that disabled people who wanted to apply for financial assistance would now have to be working at least 16 hours a week led to a huge influx of new applications.
The ILF said this led to its decision to stop accepting any new applications for the rest of this financial year, because the new awards were at a "much higher cost" than usual. It also blamed its decision on the rising costs of support.
But responding to concerns raised at the meeting by disability equality consultant Nick Goss, Miller said she was "very disappointed" by the ILF's decision, which "doesn't reflect well" on the previous Labour government.
She said: "Despite the fact that budgets were increased by three per cent, I think it really isn't the position I would like them to be in and I think it doesn't reflect well on the way that was handled by the previous administration.
"It could be time to think again about how (the ILF) operates, particularly in the light of the management situation."
The ILF declined to comment on the minister's criticism.
Asked after the meeting for further details of her future plans for the ILF, Miller said: "The ILF provides additional help to some of the most disabled people in Britain and I am very disappointed that the fund has been closed to new applicants.
"This unfortunate sequence of events is a result of the previous government's failure to properly manage this fund.
"I am working urgently to ensure more effective support for disabled people in the future and will ensure that lessons are learned from these events."
24 June 2010
Government 'will do more' on academies' SEN obligations
The government has agreed to do more to ensure that academy schools set up under proposed new laws will have to match existing obligations to pupils with special educational needs (SEN).
The pledge came after concerns raised by the disabled peer Lord ColinLow, which received widespread backing from fellow peers during the committee stage of the academies bill.
Lord Low said that, despite previous government commitments, there were still areas that were unclear and gaps that "need to be plugged" in the SEN obligations of academies - independent schools that receive government funding.
He called for "further assurance" that the academies expansion programme would not lead to a "weakening of the requirements that govern SEN provision in schools".
He said he been told of cases heard by the SEN and disability tribunal which showed existing academies were "driving a coach and horses" through their SEN obligations.
Lord Low said there was also "room for real concern" that a local authority's ability to arrange SEN provision "will be hampered by the independent status of academies".
The Bishop of Lincoln added: "There are some issues where it is too risky to leave matters simply to good will or mutual understanding, and special educational needs is one of them.
"We need to ask the minister if he will look at ways in which that dimension of academy life can be secured clearly in the bill."
Lord Hill, the Conservative junior education minister, laid out a number of measures that would ensure academies met their SEN obligations.
But he pledged to "think about how best to achieve parity" between the SEN obligations of academies and those of maintained schools - those funded by local education authorities - and said he would produce new proposals at the bill's next stage in the Lords.
24 June 2010
Polling stations 'little better on access' nine years on
The proportion of polling stations that reached a basic level of accessibility at May's general election was only slightly higher than the last election five years ago, according to a new survey.
The survey of more than 1,000 polling stations found two thirds (67 per cent) failed to meet at least one of seven basic access criteria, an improvement of just one percentage point since 2005.
And just 59 per cent of polling stations had properly-designed level access into the building, down from 60 per cent in 2005.
The disability charity Scope, which carried out the survey as part of its long-running Polls Apart campaign, said the number reaching basic levels of access (an increase of just two percentage points since 2001) was "very disappointing".
The access barriers meant many disabled people were unable to cast their vote without assistance and in secret and some were not able to vote at all or could not check their vote had been counted.
Almost half of those disabled people who used postal votes also reported at least one significant access barrier.
Scope called for new laws that would allow councils to use any public or private accessible buildings as polling stations.
It also wants councils to publish a list of the access features of its polling stations before an election, and to carry out annual reviews of polling station access.
Among other recommendations, Scope said local disabled people's organisations should carry out "mystery shopper" access audits on polling stations, while the Electoral Commission should refer serious cases of discrimination to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, or the equivalent bodies in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
It also called on the government to carry out pilots of internet voting.
Ruth Scott, Scope's director of policy and campaigns, said: "There is a pressing need for clearer accountability over how elections are delivered, to help improve the accessibility of current voting methods, as well as expanding these to include alternative methods.
"Unless this happens disabled people will continue to struggle to exercise their right to vote."
The Electoral Commission said it would "look at the recommendation in Scope's report, in light of our statutory duties", which include "supporting electoral administrators so that they can meet their responsibilities to make elections accessible to disabled people".
A spokesman for the commission added: "Our recent report on the problems experienced by some voters on polling day highlights the need for better planning by those that run elections.
"Good planning should also, as Scope's report suggests, include planning to make voting accessible to everyone."
23 June 2010
Website aims to see Paralympians reunited
The charity that manages Britain's Paralympics teams has launched a search for hundreds of missing Paralympians.
ParalympicsGB wants to track down as many as 1,700 sportsmen and women who have competed for Britain at previous Paralympic Games but have now dropped out of contact.
It wants them to sign up to the Paralympians' Club, a new website designed to reunite former GB teammates and "engage the public" in the run-up to London 2012, and provide a way for local communities to request a Paralympian for a public appearance.
The club will also offer benefits provided by London 2012 sponsors to its members, including access to a career support programme from sponsor Adecco, with other benefits yet to be confirmed.
ParalympicsGB hopes the website will become a popular resource for schools and colleges to find out more about current and former stars in the build-up to 2012. The plan is for every member of the Paralympians' Club to eventually have their own profile on the site.
Phil Lane, chief executive of ParalympicsGB, said the charity had in the past failed to keep in contact with retired Paralympic athletes in "any systematic way" and suspected there could be as many as 1,700 "missing" Paralympians, dating back to the first summer Paralympics in 1960.
The search was launched by double Paralympic swimming gold medallist Ellie Simmonds, who said: "I am proud to be a Paralympian and to be a member of the Paralympians' Club.
"Not only does the club offer some great benefits, but it's great for the public as they can use the website to find out more about us.
"I would really encourage anyone who competed for Great Britain at a Paralympic Games to contact ParalympicsGB and join the club."
Former British team members can contact retired Paralympian Iain Gowans at iain.gowans@paralympics.org.uk
For more information, visit www.paralympiansclub.org.uk
23 June 2010
New disabled people's minister pledges to fight for rights
The new Conservative minister for disabled people has pledged to work closely with disabled people, improve access and equality and work towards ending disability poverty.
Speaking at a meeting of the all-party parliamentary disability group, Maria Miller MP provided few new details about the coalition government's policies around disability rights.
But Miller, appearing the day before the chancellor announced tough new reforms of disability living allowance in his emergency budget, referred repeatedly to rights, equality and the importance of working with disabled people and their organisations.
Miller hinted that the Office for Disability Issues (ODI) would not fall victim to government spending cuts, despite concerns raised in the Lords last week, stressing its important role as the "focal point" for implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
She said: "Its principles need to become mainstream - the ODI will work with disabled people to make sure that happens."
She also praised the ODI's "Roadmap" - which details how the government plans to work towards disability equality by 2025 - as a "very useful tool" in measuring progress towards equality.
The minister made several comments about the importance of consulting and working with disabled people and disabled people's organisations (DPOs).
She said the government could only remain on course for full equality for disabled people if it had the "expert advice of disabled people and disabled people's organisations underpinning it".
Asked by Stephen Hodgkins from the Disablity LIB alliance what the Conservative call for a "Big Society" would mean for disabled people and DPOs, she said that many organisations supporting disabled people were "run on a shoestring by people who have an immense knowledge and commitment".
She added: "What I want Big Society to do is support an increase in the capacity of those organisations to do more to support disabled people."
After Baroness TanniGrey-Thompson raised concerns that campaigners could become complacent and stop fighting for equality and inclusion because of the "difficult economic times ahead", the minister promised that the government's emphasis on "fairness...comes right from the top of the coalition".
She gave no new details about the government's welfare reform agenda, but repeated the pledge of "comprehensive and unconditional support" for those unable to work, and said concerns over the new work capability assessment were "very much uppermost in all of our minds".
She also repeated the government's pledge to reform the Access to Work programme, so disabled people would be able to secure funding for workplace adaptations and equipment before they applied for a job.
She also promised that "ending disability poverty" was a "key part" of the government's "wider social agenda".
Baroness JaneCampbell asked whether the new government would introduce "portability" of care packages - giving "freedom of movement" to disabled people who want to move to a different local authority area.
Miller said she had not yet formed a "clear view" on the issue, but saw "enormous value" in "trying to ensure that wherever possible the packages we put in place are as personal as possible".
In answer to a question from Baroness RosalieWilkins, Miller said access to housing for disabled people was "critical", but could not yet give any details on future government policy.
She said: "We are going to ensure that disabled people have greater access to housing, transport, healthcare and employment and a whole range of other services."
She also promised that schools would be "held to account for the progress of all their pupils and not just some".
In response to a question from the new Conservative MP, Paul Maynard - who is believed to be both the first former special school pupil and the first person with cerebral palsy to become an MP - Miller reaffirmed the government's commitment to set up a fund to support more disabled people to become involved in public life.
Maynard also asked her about disability hate crime, which he said was an issue raised by "an awful lot of people" on the streets.
Miller said there was a need for ensuring "as much support as we can from the police and other local organisations in local government in recognising and tackling hate crime".
Labour MP Anne Begg asked if the minister could ensure the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) played "a much more proactive role" in ensuring that anti-discrimination laws were "actually applied".
Miller said she would take the issue up with the EHRC, because it was "clear" that court action was needed to ensure that "legislation has teeth and that it bites".
Responding to Lord ColinLow's request for the government to "put its shoulder to the wheel" in ensuring the progress of the European equal treatment directive - particularly the possible inclusion of measures to ensure the accessibility of manufactured goods - she promised to "go away and look at it in some detail".
Baroness Campbell also announced the all-party group's new officers. She will continue to co-chair the group, while the new Commons co-chair is Anne McGuire, the former Labour minister for disabled people, who herself has a long-term health condition.
The vice-chairs will be Conservative MP Peter Bottomley and Baroness Wilkins, a Labour peer, with Chris Skidmore - the Conservative MP for Kingswood who defeated the group's former co-chair Roger Berry at the general election - the new treasurer and secretary.
22 June 2010
Doctors admit people with learning difficulties face discrimination
Almost half of doctors - and more than a third of nurses - believe people with learning difficulties receive poorer healthcare than the rest of the population, according to a new survey.
Similar numbers have seen a patient with a learning difficulty being treated with neglect or lack of dignity or receive poor care, while nearly four out of ten doctors and a third of nurses believe people with learning difficulties face discrimination in the NHS.
The online survey of more than 1,000 doctors and nurses for the charity Mencap also found that more than half of doctors and more than two thirds of nurses admitted they needed guidance on how treatment should be adjusted to meet the needs of patients with learning difficulties.
The results come two weeks after Andrew Lee, director of People First (Self Advocacy), said people with learning difficulties still faced a two-tier health system.
Lee told Disability News Service that he and other people with learning difficulties faced a "lottery" on whether they were taken seriously by healthcare staff when seeking treatment.
Three years ago, Mencap's Death by Indifference report highlighted the cases of six people with learning difficulties who died unnecessarily in NHS hospitals, and accused the NHS of institutional discrimination.
The following year, Sir Jonathan Michael's inquiry into access to healthcare for people with learning difficulties - set up in response to Death by Indifference - found "convincing evidence" that they had "higher levels of unmet need and receive less effective treatment".
Mencap published the results of the new survey as it launched its Getting It Right campaign, which has been backed by the National Autistic Society.
It wants health trusts to sign up to a charter, which explains the adjustments healthcare professionals should make when treating someone with a learning difficulty.
Among its demands are: awareness training for all staff; a learning difficulties liaison nurse in every hospital; staff to ensure every person with a learning difficulty can have an annual health check; and information that is accessible to people with learning difficulties.
Mark Goldring, Mencap's chief executive, said the survey showed the need for "urgent action", while the campaign aims to ensure that "ignorance and discrimination need never be the cause of death of someone with a learning disability".
He said the charter would make health trusts accountable to people with learning difficulties, and their families and carers.
A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "Improvements have been made in delivering healthcare for people with learning disabilities but there is still much to do. Health remains one of the three priorities for the government's learning disability strategy."
21 June 2010
Council and Guide Dogs 'will work together on shared streets plans'
A high-profile court case has been put on hold after a council agreed to work with disability organisations on its plans for a controversial "shared streets" development in London's tourist heartland.
The charity Guide Dogs had raised serious concerns - backed by 30 disability organisations - over the development of Exhibition Road by Kensington and Chelsea council.
Shared streets designs usually remove kerbs so motorists and pedestrians can share the street space, but users of the space have to make eye contact to establish right of way.
Campaigners say the need for eye contact and the absence of kerbs, which people with guide dogs and long canes use to navigate, puts visually-impaired people at risk.
Exhibition Road is used by an estimated 19 million pedestrians a year and runs from Hyde Park past the Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Guide Dogs won the right in March in the high court to challenge the council's plans through a judicial review. But the court case has now been put on hold after the charity reached an agreement with the council.
As part of the agreement, Kensington and Chelsea said it hoped to obtain permission from the Department for Transport for a new shared streets traffic sign that would give pedestrians right of way.
Guide Dogs and other disability organisations will also work with the council on "real world trials" to test the "corduroy paving" markings that will separate the pedestrian and traffic zones.
Guide Dogs and other members of the scheme's access group will be "fully consulted" on how the trials are carried out, and how the results are evaluated.
If the trials show the tactile paving is not "sufficiently detectable", the council has promised that its cabinet will reconsider the designs.
Richard Leaman, chief executive of Guide Dogs, said the charity was "delighted" with the agreement, and said he hoped it could "herald a new approach to the development of street design in the UK".
He added: "Blind and partially sighted people have told us that, for them, shared surfaces are ambiguous and distressing environments which can stop them from enjoying the independence and freedom that the rest of us take for granted.
"By working together, we should be able to ensure that Exhibition Road meets the needs of everyone - so being truly fit for the 21st century."
Inclusion London welcomed the council's decision to work with Guide Dogs and disabled people on the trials "and amend the plans if trials reveal barriers to disabled people".
21 June 2010
News Stories from the week ending 18 June 2010
Peers raise fresh concerns over government cuts
Peers have raised fears that the government could be planning cuts to the disability living allowance (DLA) budget and the Access to Work (ATW) programme, and could be set to abolish the Office for Disability Issues (ODI).
The concerns were raised in a debate held to mark the 40th anniversary of The Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act.
The disabled peer Lord Colin Low said there had been "rumours" that the ODI - which works across government to promote equality for disabled people - was "under threat".
And he warned that any move to cut spending on ATW would "directly undermine the government's efforts to move disabled people off benefits and into work".
He said disabled people were "anxiously awaiting the Budget next week, with the possibility of cuts in their income through means-testing and restrictions on benefits such as the disability living allowance and attendance allowance".
The former Labour minister Baroness Thornton asked whether the new coalition government was planning cuts to ATW and a review of DLA, and whether it would take forward the Labour government's independent living strategy.
The disabled peer Baroness Jane Campbell told the debate that the social care system was "in crisis" and that disabled people face "obscenely tough personal assessments of their needs".
She said: "We need a new approach and new legislation to enable disabled people to face the future with dignity and the assurance that they will not be forgotten by a society that puts resources before need."
She also criticised the Equality and Human Rights Commission for putting equality for disabled people "on the back-burner", and said it still needed to learn to incorporate disability rights into its equality and human rights agenda.
Lord Freud, the Conservative welfare reform minister, said it was "vital that any budget cuts do not disproportionately affect disabled people", and that the coalition was "committed to championing disability equality across government".
But he said it was too early in the new administration to answer "specific questions" about the government's plans.
All of the peers paid tribute to Lord Alf Morris, who introduced the act as a private members' bill when he was a new Labour MP.
Lord Low said the act was "one of the most celebrated pieces of legislation in modern times" and was "unquestionably a landmark act".
Baroness Campbell said the act was "groundbreaking" and praised Lord Morris for being a leader who "worked hand in hand with the people for whom he was fighting".
The disabled peer Lord Jack Ashley, who worked on the bill as a Labour MP, said that one of its main achievements was that it "drew attention to the subject of disability, which had hitherto been ignored completely".
Lord Corbett, the former Labour disability spokesman, who secured the debate, said the act was "the first legislation in the world to enshrine the belief that people with disabilities had rights which should be respected and enforced in law, and to set out a detailed framework of what those rights were".
Lord Morris said his act had helped more than 60 million disabled people, and had become "the model for legislation on disability in countries all over the world".
18 June 2010
Further blow to Independent Living Fund support
The Independent Living Fund (ILF) has announced that it will not accept any further new applications for the rest of the year.
An ILF spokeswoman said the decision was not connected with government funding cuts, as it had received a three per cent increase in its budget for the current financial year.
The ILF - which is funded by the government and supports disabled people with high support needs to live independently - had already announced in March that disabled people who wanted to apply for financial assistance would now have to be working at least 16 hours a week.
But that announcement led to an unexpectedly high number of new applications at the start of the new financial year.
The ILF has now decided to fund 600 of those new applicants but said it would not be able to accept any further new applications for the rest of the year.
It had budgeted to make 1,000 new awards this year but was only able to fund 600 because the new awards were at a "much higher cost" than usual. The ILF also blamed its decision on the rising costs of support.
The ILF said the measures taken would "ensure that the existing 21,000 ILF users' awards continue at their current level".
But it also said it would not be able to increase any individual's existing funding, other than providing "additional support to meet some of their employer responsibilities, and in response to certain changes in their income".
Patrick Boyle, chief executive of the ILF, said: "Our first priority is the 21,000 disabled people we currently support to achieve high quality independent lives.
"Our trustees have acted quickly in their decision to protect this group and to meet their responsibility to manage within budget.
"We are committed to continuing and developing the excellent service we deliver to our users, allowing them greater flexibility in how they choose to manage their funding."
18 June 2010
More than three guide dogs attacked every month, say researchers
New research has found that more than three guide dog every month in the UK are being attacked by other dogs.
The research, published in the magazine Veterinary Record, found that almost two-thirds of the attacks were made on dogs that were in a harness and working with their blind or visually-impaired owner or a trainer.
More than three-fifths of the attacking dogs were off their lead at the time.
The researchers identified 100 attacks between November 2006 and April 2009. Excluding cross-breeds, almost half of the attacking dogs were bulldogs, mastiffs, bull terriers, pit bulls and Staffordshire bull terriers, even though such breeds make up just six per cent of the UK dog population.
More than two-fifths of the guide dogs needed treatment by a vet, and in a fifth of cases, either the guide dog handler or a member of the public was injured.
The performance or behaviour of nearly half of the guide dogs attacked was affected, with two dogs no longer able to continue in their work.
And in only six cases did the owner of the attacking dog apologise. In eight cases, they left without saying anything, even though many of the handlers were "shocked and distressed", and unable to see if their dog needed treatment.
Most of the attacks took place in public places between 9am and 3pm.
The charity Guide Dogs said: "The numbers of dog attacks on guide dogs in the UK is concerning and we fear that many incidents go unreported.
"Certainly our research shows that owners do not usually report attacks to the police.
"Such incidents cause trauma to both the guide dog and its blind or partially sighted owner, often adversely affecting their partnership and therefore the person's mobility."
The charity said it had urged police chief constables across England and Wales to "treat all such attacks most seriously", while dangerous dogs laws in Scotland have already been strengthened.
And in Northern Ireland "there has already been a case where an attack on a guide dog was seen as an extension of an attack on its owner", the charity added.
Guide Dogs said aggressive dogs should be kept on a lead "and muzzled if necessary".
18 June 2010
Clegg says disabled children will be task force priority
The deputy prime minister has promised that supporting disabled children and their families will be one of the priorities of a new cross-government task force on childhood and families.
In a speech at an event organised by the charity Barnardo's in London, Nick Clegg said the task force would be led by the prime minister, David Cameron, and would include senior ministers from across the government.
The group will aim to "identify and prioritise" a small number of policies that would make "the biggest difference to children and families".
Clegg said the task force would "look at how we can provide greater support to disabled children", although the policies he mentioned focused on services for parents of disabled children.
He said the government had already announced it would use direct payments for carers and "better community-based care" to give families "more support", and invest an extra £20 million a year in respite care with money saved by ending the government's contribution to child trust funds.
Clegg said: "While our towering deficit means we can no longer afford these payments across the board...it is right that we make special provision for children with disabilities. For them and their families, respite care can be a lifeline."
But he failed to mention issues such as inclusion for disabled children in mainstream services, discrimination, bullying and the need for accessible leisure activities.
17 June 2010
Minister faces up to DAN's welfare reform protest
Disabled activists secured a face-to-face meeting with the new minister for disabled people, during a protest over the government's welfare-to-work policies.
About 30 members of the Disabled People's Direct Action Network (DAN) and allies chanted slogans and held placards calling for "real work for real pay" and "welfare not workfare" outside the Manchester offices of A4E, one of the private sector companies paid by the government to find work for disabled people.
Although the police were called after protesters entered the building where A4E has its offices, there were no arrests.
The protest on 16 June then moved on to Manchester town hall, where the new Conservative minister for disabled people, Maria Miller MP, was attending the annual independent living awards run by the disability organisation Breakthrough UK.
After protesters gained access to the town hall, the minister agreed to speak to them about their concerns around the government's welfare-to-work agenda.
Rebecca Young, one of the organisers of the protest, who talked to the minister, said: "We told her that the jobs that are being produced are quite often meaningless, almost always at minimum wage and occasionally below - under the auspices of 'training'.
"The whole exercise doesn't result in a real job with a real working wage. It takes people away from activities in the community such as voluntary work and sends them off to earn next to nothing doing a job that sometimes they can't actually do for physical or psychological reasons.
"Most people on benefits are on them because there are no suitable jobs for them to do.
"The minister kept referring to things like job placements, whereas most of us would hope to be referred to a job, not a placement."
Young said the minister didn't seem to understand that the reason so many disabled people were not in work was because of "systemic" problems in society around the lack of support, access, education and suitable jobs.
She added: "It's not as simple as chasing people off to interviews or into work. The government seems to believe that we just need a bit more encouraging or training to do a job, but there is so much more to it than that."
Young said the protest was "a massive success", as they had the chance to talk to Miller and "look her in the eye" and explain why it was important to engage with grassroots organisations of disabled people, rather than the big disability charities.
She added: "We told her she could expect to see us again."
17 June 2010
Freud's warm words fail to quell welfare concerns
The welfare system has made it "much easier" for disabled people to depend on benefits than on themselves, according to the new Conservative minister for welfare reform.
Speaking at a parliamentary reception on the financial independence of disabled people, Lord Freud said the current welfare system "holds back people who are capable of fulfilling work" and "forces disabled people into a life of dependency and robs them of dignity".
He gave few new details on the government's welfare reform plans, but did reveal plans to examine why only 17 per cent of working age recipients of disability living allowance (DLA) had jobs, compared with 47 per cent of all working age disabled people.
He said: "Far too many disabled people...are not in enough control of their own lives to support themselves financially.
"This is a social issue, this is not an issue of capability. We need to constantly challenge society and attitudes and perceptions towards disabled people so they are and can be really involved in society."
He said the government would "look closely" at criticisms of the work capability assessment (WCA), Labour's new test for assessing disabled people's readiness to work.
But he said that, "as the fundamental structure, the WCA is the way to go".
Lord Freud also said the government was committed to using the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as "a catalyst for achieving disability equality", and that it was "looking at how best to implement" Labour's Equality Act.
Baroness Jane Campbell, who hosted the reception, attacked the "common assumption...that disabled people are unable to work, we don't want to work, we are lazy, we are scroungers".
She said: "These are not just assumptions, they are excuses and they are inaccurate and they have no justification or underlying basis."
She appealed to the new coalition government to "help us put an end to these misconceptions".
The reception also saw the launch of RADAR's new guide for MPs on disability issues.
Many of those who heard Lord Freud's speech praised the minister's language, but said there was too little detail to judge the government's welfare reform plans.
Anne Begg, the disabled Labour MP who was last week elected chair of the influential work and pensions committee, said that "some of the rhetoric was good" but it was too early to say if the government was taking the right approach.
But she raised concerns about the huge numbers of disabled people who will have to be assessed through the WCA and how they would receive the specialist support they need to find work.
Neil Coyle, director of policy for Disability Alliance, said the speech had contained "some very welcome language", but the reference to DLA had been "the largest alarm bell".
He said he feared Lord Freud's comments suggested the government was about to make "significant changes to DLA" and that civil servants had "got their foot in the door again" on DLA reform.
He said: "In the Conservative manifesto there was a commitment to protect DLA. We hope this commitment will not be undermined by any review and hope the government will work very closely on any review with stakeholders."
Liz Sayce, chief executive of RADAR, said: "I think it's welcome that he was talking about enabling people to feel fulfilled and not being written off. The real questions about detail are yet to come.
"We want to ensure that people get support with as much control as possible...something that is very personalised."
David Evans, vice-chair of Deafblind UK, said Lord Freud's "fine words" did not remove the "fear" and "concern" of many disabled people about the WCA.
He also pointed to concerns about the lack of training for the many new staff recruited by Jobcentre Plus to cope with the recession, and the lack of jobs available for disabled people.
17 June 2010
Disabled talent recognised in birthday honours
Some of the country's leading disabled creative, sporting, academic and campaigning talents have been recognised in the Queen's birthday honours.
One of Britain's most successful record-producers, Robin Millar, was awarded a CBE. Millar has been responsible for 150 gold, silver and platinum discs and 44 number ones, but is also a business mentor and public speaker and fundraiser for causes such as Oxfam, UNICEF and Artists Against Apartheid.
He told Disability News Service: "When we go about our daily lives most of us just get on with it. I don't think many people except outright careerists are taking a strategic view about what it all might mean later on.
"Goodness knows what it is that has prompted this award. I doubt very much if it was the nude modelling, though!"
Dr Jenny Morris, the veteran activist, academic, author and consultant, receives an OBE for services to disabled people.
Among her long list of credits, she led the independent living review for the Office for Disability Issues, was a member of the national working group on child protection and disability, and has written reports on support for disabled parents and the social exclusion faced by disabled teenagers with high support needs.
Dr Rachel Perkins, who last year carried out a well-received review for the government on helping people with mental health conditions into work, receives an OBE for services to mental health.
She is a clinical psychologist and a director at South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust, and has just joined the government's advisory network of disabled people, Equality 2025.
She said: "This is a really great honour, but it does not reflect my work alone. I am deeply committed to enabling people with mental health conditions to rebuild their lives and in particular to gain jobs and pursue their careers."
But she said the award was as much due to the hard work and dedication of staff and service-users at the trust, who help more than 600 people with mental health conditions find work every year, while others study or take up volunteering opportunities.
Steve Scott, who chairs the Dwarf Athletic Association UK, receives an MBE for services to disabled people and disability sport. Scott, who says he is an "influencer" rather than a "campaigner", has been involved in disability rights for more than 15 years.
He is an external affairs executive for Remploy, but is currently on secondment with the Department for Work and Pensions, working on the government's Access to Work policy. He also works with disabled people in Manchester as a volunteer.
He said: "It is very nice to be recognised but there are lots of people that do a lot more work than I do."
He said much of his work focused on making sure barriers were removed so that disabled people could take part in employment, sport and any other activities.
He has also helped to "reposition" Remploy as a provider of mainstream - rather than segregated - employment services, and to ensure that disabled people's organisations "may not necessarily like Remploy but understand why it's there", while also feeding their views back to Remploy.
Three former Paralympic sportswomen were recognised for services to disability sport.
Carol Walton, who receives an OBE, won 10 Paralympic gold medals at seven Paralympic Games, is now a member of the executive committee of the wheelchair sports charity WheelPower, and works for ParalympicsGB.
She competed in swimming, athletics, fencing, table-tennis and basketball, and managed the British wheelchair fencing team.
Ann Wild, who also receives an OBE, played in her first senior wheelchair basketball international at the age of 13, represented Britain at five Paralympics, captained the British team for 15 years before retiring in 2009, and is a successful coach. She is now hoping to qualify for London 2012 in rowing.
Nicola Tustain, who receives an MBE, won three gold and three bronze Paralympic medals in dressage, and is also an accomplished badminton player.
Another recognised from the sporting arena is Geoff Holt, who receives an MBE. In January, he became the first quadriplegic person to sail across the Atlantic single-handed. He was honoured for services to disability sailing.
Former lawyer Olivia Giles has been awarded an OBE for her charity work. She runs the charity 500 Miles, which supports amputees and other disabled people in Malawi and Zambia.
Lisa Charlton receives an MBE for voluntary services to disabled people. She helped set up the north-east branch of Different Strokes, which provides support services to young stroke survivors and is run by stroke survivors.
Different Strokes North-East celebrates its tenth anniversary in September. She said she was "absolutely delighted" by the MBE, which was "a big shock".
Charlton is a trustee of both RNIB and Newcastle Society for Blind People, works part-time as a fundraiser for Citizens Advice, and raises funds for the other charities she volunteers for.
She said there was still a "real lack of awareness" that younger people can have strokes.
16 June 2010
Robots and avatars 'are the future of assisted living'
Robotics, internet video-calls and even virtual reality "avatars" are likely to play an increasing role in supporting disabled and older people to live independently, according to a senior government adviser.
Professor Brian Collins, chief scientific adviser to both the Department for Transport and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, described a series of advances in so-called "smart" technology.
He was speaking at the Smart Living conference, organised by the charity PhoneAbility, which promotes access to information and communication technology for disabled and older people.
Professor Collins said the next generation of hand-held navigation aids would allow people to pinpoint their location to about 10 cm, making it easier for blind people to navigate obstacles.
A wheelchair-user's hand-held electronic device will soon be able to tell a bus to lower its ramp - without needing to ask the driver - while Japanese scientists have developed a robot that can use chopsticks, to help people with arthritis.
Professor Collins said sensors attached to the body will soon be able to alter the immediate environment according to a person's health needs, although he said there was a "really interesting debate going on in Whitehall" about the potential loss of privacy.
He also said there was "huge potential" for the internet to deliver "information and conversation" and provide people living alone with "a sense of community".
He even suggested that "avatars" - virtual reality images of people - could soon be providing "social well-being support" in a person's home. He said: "I think that is a bit scary but it is something we do need to examine."
But he warned that "smart can turn to dumb very easily if you do not design very well-designed systems and well-designed support for those systems", and said the technology must be "very cheap" so as to make it widely available.
Peter Ball, strategic research director for BRE, which carries out research, testing and consultancy on the built environment, told the conference: "We have got to get these products into the mainstream because that will bring down the cost. It's got to be affordable."
He also pointed to examples of future use of smart technology, such as wallpaper that could be set to influence a person's mood, and motion sensors that monitor the movements of someone with a long-term health condition.
Alex Cowan, a disabled delegate to the conference, said she was both "excited and scared" by some of the technologies discussed.
Cowan, a disability equality and inclusive design consultant, said a disabled person must be able to say "no" to a smart device, while the technology must be "impact assessed" for any barriers it might create for disabled people.
She said: "It is really important to say, 'yes, this is fantastic technology, but what are the barriers, who might be the people who cannot use it and how can we include them?'"
Any alternative versions must be "on the same level" and not inferior to the original, she added.
The conference came days after the government-funded Technology Strategy Board announced a £10 million funding pot for research that would encourage investment in assisted living services and technology.
16 June 2010
Tanni's maiden speech hints at future focus in Lords
Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson has used her maiden speech in the House of Lords to speak of her hope that the London 20102 Olympic and Paralympic Games will lead to "significant change" and inclusion for disabled people.
The disabled peer - who won 11 Paralympic athletics gold medals - was speaking in a debate on progress towards staging the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in London.
Baroness Grey-Thompson, a crossbench peer, also hinted at some of the areas she might focus on in the Lords, with her speech mentioning inclusive education; increasing opportunities for girls and women; and access to physical activity for all children.
She told peers how her parents had "fought hard to get me into mainstream education - something that I strongly believe gave me the right platform on which to build my sporting career".
She said the Paralympics had two messages: one about winning and the other about "spreading inclusion and change", and pointed to how the Paralympics had improved "social provision" for disabled people in China, while sport continues to "challenge attitudes towards disabled people".
She said "unprecedented" numbers of disabled people were applying for jobs with LOCOG - the 2012 organising committee - because of "its passion for diversity and inclusion", with LOCOG now becoming "one of the most attractive employers of choice for disabled people".
She called for young people to have access to physical activity in and outside school, and for disabled children to "have the right and the opportunity to be included".
She also said that girls should be enabled to "find the right environment in which to develop their skills to allow them to compete in the wider world", and added: "We know that currently women are employed in only one in five of the top jobs in sport.
"To be a successful nation, not just in sport but in business, we should challenge that, because sport is a microcosm of society."
She added: "We all need to grasp the opportunity of the Games being on home soil to inspire our nation to think differently and to include every part of our great nation."
16 June 2010
Watchdog ignores call for more audio description
The broadcasting watchdog has ignored the views of hundreds of visually-impaired people who took part in a consultation on audio-described television.
Disabled campaigners accused Ofcom of "a total cop-out", after it decided not to recommend any of three possible options on future minimum levels of audio-described TV, but to leave the decision to the government.
Nearly all UK broadcasters currently have to provide audio description (AD) - added commentary that describes body language, expressions and movements taking place on the screen - for at least 10 per cent of their programmes.
But an Ofcom review considered three options: keeping this minimum level of AD at 10 per cent; increasing it for all channels to 20 per cent; or increasing it to 20 per cent just for public service channels.
All but one of the groups representing visually-impaired people who took part in a public consultation - and more than 550 individuals who were visually-impaired or had visually-impaired family or friends - opted for an increase to 20 per cent across the board.
They said AD gave visually-impaired people "a sense of social inclusion, equality and independence", while current levels were "inadequate".
Groups representing hearing-impaired people - and Ofcom's advisory committee on older and disabled people - backed an increase for public service channels only.
Some broadcasters argued there was not enough evidence to justify an increase, although the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky "committed voluntarily" to audio describe 20 per cent of their programmes.
Ofcom concluded that the arguments were "very finely balanced" and decided to leave the decision to Jeremy Hunt, the secretary of state for culture, media and sport, without making a "specific recommendation".
But Ivan Lunn, chair of South Tyneside Visually Impaired Council, which took part in the consultation, accused Ofcom of "passing the buck", "a total cop-out" and "dashing people's hopes".
He said he could not understand how Ofcom could say the arguments were "finely balanced" when visually-impaired people all wanted the levels raised.
Lunn said: "It gives visually-impaired people more choice of what they can watch on all channels.
"It gives them choice instead of sitting in a room with a group of people and when the sound goes off and other people are laughing, visually-impaired people cannot see what they are laughing at."
Ofcom also concluded that further work was needed to publicise AD and will now discuss with broadcasters "how best to secure this".
An Ofcom spokeswoman said: "Ofcom is an evidence-based regulator. Having weighed the evidence and the arguments, including the views of interested parties, Ofcom has concluded that the arguments for each option are finely balanced."
15 June 2010
Research triggers fears among autistic rights campaigners
Disabled activists have raised serious concerns about new genetic research which could lead to treatments or cures for autism.
Members of the autistic rights movement fear the research could lead to abortion clinics being seen as a "solution" to autism, as they say has happened with Down's syndrome.
They spoke out after an international consortium of scientists announced they had discovered new genetic triggers for autism.
Scientists with the Autism Genome Project said their discoveries pointed to "new avenues of scientific investigation, as well as potential targets for the development of novel treatments".
But Roderick Cobley, chair of the London Autistic Rights Movement, said the widespread media coverage of the research had failed to acknowledge that it was the "economic, social and attitudinal barriers in society that are the true disablers of autistic people, and not their condition in itself".
Cobley said the research could eventually benefit parents if it was used to give them advance notice of their child's needs.
But he said that much of the discussion in the media had focused instead on the possibilities for "treating and eliminating autism".
He said: "We are again being bombarded by references to autism in terms of disease, disorder and suffering.
"Worst of all is the raising of the possibility of genetic testing, and perhaps of pre-natal testing.
"Without in any way prejudicing the rights of women to make their own reproductive choices, the abortion clinic should not be seen by society as the solution for autism, as has happened with Down's syndrome."
Cobley called for more funding for research into how to "improve autistic people's lives in the here and now", rather than "chasing after miracle cures and treatments".
And he pointed to research in Canada which found that autism often had advantages as well as disadvantages.
14 June 2010
EHRC calls for personal stories of harassment
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is appealing to disabled people to come forward with evidence of their own experiences of disability-related intimidation and violence.
The evidence call is part of the EHRC's inquiry into what public bodies and transport providers are doing to eliminate disability-related harassment and its causes.
The EHRC is threatening to take legal action against councils, police forces, schools, and bus and train companies which are failing in their legal duties to prevent disability-related harassment.
The inquiry is looking at how disabled victims of harassment - ranging from name-calling, offensive graffiti and cyber-bullying to damage to property, financial exploitation, rape and murder - have been supported by public bodies and transport providers across England, Scotland and Wales.
It will also ask what public bodies have done to prevent such harassment, and examine its causes.
Crown Prosecution Service figures for the two years to March 2009 found on average that more than one person every working day was appearing in court charged with a disability hate crime, while EHRC evidence suggests many more incidents go unreported or are not dealt with properly by public bodies.
An EHRC spokeswoman said the 12 per cent cut in the EHRC's budget demanded by the government would not affect the inquiry.
Anne Novis, who leads on hate crime issues for the UK Disabled People's Council, said she hoped disabled people's organisations (DPOs) would influence and lead the inquiry and be its "main voice".
She said this would allow disabled people to show how little had been done to prevent harassment and "how little support we get and how hard to is to access justice services due to the barriers we face".
Novis said she hoped the EHRC would identify the guidance and support that public services need "to be proactive" but also "use their powers to penalise those who do nothing to comply with the relevant disability duties".
Mike Smith, the EHRC commissioner leading the inquiry and chair of its disability committee, said harassment was "an everyday part of life for many disabled people".
He said the inquiry would help public bodies "ensure that future tragedies are prevented and transform the way that the people of Britain value and respect disabled people".
Stephen Brookes, coordinator of the National Disability Hate Crime Network, welcomed the launch of the evidence-gathering part of the inquiry.
He said too many public bodies used data protection laws as an excuse not to share information with other agencies about disability hate crime.
Brookes added: "Too many disabled people do not report acts of hostility for the simple reason they feel they won't be believed, and our aim is to ensure that this inquiry leads to ways to stop hate crime and make all agencies start taking their responsibility to disabled people more seriously."
Maria Miller MP, the new Conservative minister for disabled people, welcomed the inquiry and urged disabled people and DPOs to submit evidence, both about incidents of harassment and with examples of "positive work being done to tackle disability hate crime".
This "first wave" of evidence will be collected until 10 September, and can be given through the EHRC website, by email or via its helpline.
There will also be evidence-gathering events around Britain over the next three months, with 13 already organised. These events will be publicised locally, and disabled people and organisations of and for disabled people will be invited.
The commission is also likely to use its legal powers to force public bodies and witnesses to give evidence, with hearings set to take place from September.
The EHRC has already written to Hinckley and Bosworth council, asking it for evidence that it is meeting its legal duties, following last year's inquest into the deaths of Fiona Pilkington and her disabled daughter Francecca.
The EHRC said it could not say what action resulted from the letter for legal reasons.
A council spokeswoman said: "All I can say at the moment is that the council is working with the EHRC to alleviate their concerns."
For information on how to give evidence to the inquiry, visit www.equalityhumanrights.com/disabilityharassmentfi
11 June 2010
News Stories from the week ending 10 June 2010
EHRC faces deep budget cuts The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has been told by the government to slash its spending this year by nearly 12 per cent.
The government has ordered the EHRC to find £7 million in savings from this year's £60 million budget, as part of efforts to reduce the public sector deficit.
The equality and human rights watchdog said it was reviewing its business plan and had implemented an immediate freeze on marketing, advertising and consultancy, and was aiming to cut the number of temporary staff.
Most recruitment has been frozen, although its search for a new chief executive will continue as planned and there could still be recruitment in "frontline and business-critical areas".
An EHRC spokesman said its priorities would remain providing advice to individuals and organisations, taking "strategic" legal cases and enforcing equality law.
He said: "The overall message is we will continue to ensure the most vulnerable people do not suffer unfairly as the country grapples with the current economic climate."
But he added: "It is going to be tough. We need to ensure it doesn't hit us too much.
"We had obviously been anticipating, like all other public bodies, that there would be cuts in the budget, whoever won the election.
"Since the beginning of the year we had been going through a process of looking at the structure of the commission as we come up to our third anniversary."
He said this "strategic review" would ensure the EHRC delivers "the best value for money", with results expected this autumn.
He also stressed that more than £14 million in grants awarded last November to community and voluntary organisations - including several disabled people's organisations (DPOs) - would be paid as planned as part of its strategic funding and legal grants programme, and added: "They will not be cut."
And he said the cuts would also not impact on the scope of its major inquiry into disability-related harassment, although it could be forced to review its spending on marketing and advertising in connection with the inquiry.
11 June 2010
Disabled MP elected to chair influential committee
A disabled MP has become the first elected chair of the influential committee that will hold the government to account over welfare reform.
The Labour MP Anne Begg said the economic climate would make her job as chair of the work and pensions select committee "challenging".
She warned that the Department for Work and Pensions - which is responsible for spending on benefits - was "bound to face a lot of cuts" as it was the largest-spending department.
She told Disability News Service: "It's not one of the sexy frontline services and nobody is saying they will protect the welfare budget.
"One of the things about welfare is that it is quite easy to save money. You just stop paying it to people: you change the criteria, or freeze or cut the benefit.
"But the consequence of that is the cost to society of those who fall through the safety net and end up homeless or on the street or in the black economy."
Begg said she was concerned that the tough messages coming out of the new coalition government on welfare reform and its new single work programme could mean that "basically what we end up with is all of the stick and none of the carrot".
As the other members of the committee have yet to be selected, she could not say which areas they would focus on.
But the committee is likely to examine the government's plans to reassess those disabled people still receiving old-style incapacity benefit (IB) through the tough new work capability assessment.
She said she was concerned about what would happen once the DWP started to reassess disabled people who have been receiving IB for up to 20 years, as the new test used to test people's readiness for work was "already too tight".
Begg said her personal experience as a disabled person would mean she was working "from a position of understanding", while the knowledge that she and other select committee chairs had been elected by fellow MPs would "strengthen our hands".
And with all committee members elected by their own parties for the first time, this might also "embolden" her committee colleagues, she said.
Begg said one of her strengths was bringing people together to "gel" as a team.
She said: "The best select committees are the ones that hunt as a pack. That's my aspiration for the work and pensions select committee."
But she warned: "Select committees are powerful but they are not that powerful."
10 June 2010
New work programme 'by next summer'
The government has announced its timetable for replacing Labour's employment schemes with one single work programme for people on out-of-work benefits, including those who are disabled.
In a ministerial statement, the Conservative employment minister Chris Grayling said the government aimed to have its programme in place across the country by next summer.
He said it would provide "personalised help for everyone who finds themselves out of work regardless of the benefit they claim".
Grayling claimed the new programme would give voluntary and private sector providers longer to work with clients and "greater freedom to decide the appropriate support for them".
He also confirmed the pledge made by the Conservatives before the election that providers would be paid more to secure jobs for those who were "harder to help", such as those disabled people who need more support to find work.
The coalition government's plans will mean existing job programmes for disabled people - including Pathways to Work and New Deal for Disabled People - will be "phased out" or "folded into the Work Programme".
Grayling said: "Once the Work Programme is implemented it will supersede much of the complicated raft of national programmes currently on offer and these will be phased out.
"The support currently provided by programmes such as the Flexible New Deal will be folded into the Work Programme as soon as possible."
But Grayling also said the government was "committed to supporting severely disabled people" and was "currently reviewing the best way of doing this".
Some welfare-to-work commentators have suggested this could mean that Work Choice, the new specialist disability employment programme that is due to replace Workstep from October, might not be scrapped.
A Department for Work and Pensions spokeswoman said any comments about the future of Work Choice were "speculation" at this stage.
10 June 2010
Disabled ex-soldier enters Big Brother house
A disabled ex-soldier has been selected as one of the housemates for the final series of the TV reality show Big Brother.
Immediate impressions of Steve Gill on blogs and websites were overwhelmingly positive, both from disabled and non-disabled people, and bookmakers quickly installed him as one of the favourites to win the competition.
Gill is no stranger to the media spotlight. Earlier this year, he took part in a transatlantic yacht race with a crew of fellow amputee ex-servicemen.
He also coaches wheelchair basketball and supports the British Limbless Ex Service Men's Association (BLESMA), the national charity for serving and ex-service men and women who have lost limbs.
In a video on the BLESMA website, Gill describes how he lost an eye and his two legs in an explosion while serving with the army in Belfast in 1989.
A BLESMA spokeswoman said they thought Gill was "fantastic" and were hoping his appearance would help raise awareness of the charity's work.
Channel 4 said Gill was married with eight children and that he chooses to wear shorts to show his prosthetic limbs. He said: "I purposely walk around looking the way I do. It's better to be open about who you are."
A fellow amputee noted on the Big Brother website that some people were already commenting on the fact that Gill did not have a paid job, despite his voluntary work.
Another viewer who posted on the site warned that comments about Gill's employment status were "a taste of what's to come in the press", with a new government "softening us up for cuts".
Gill's entry into Channel 4's Big Brother house comes less than a month after the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom condemned the use of offensive, disablist language by Big Brother presenter Davina McCall and footballer-turned-actor Vinnie Jones on a Big Brother offshoot.
10 June 2010
Hospital's death fine highlights 'two-tier' health system
People with learning difficulties still face a "two-tier health system", two years after an independent inquiry concluded that they received less effective treatment than non-disabled people, it has been claimed.
A leading disabled activist spoke out after a hospital trust was fined £50,000 over the death of a disabled man whose head became trapped in his bed rails.
Kyle Flack, who had learning difficulties and cerebral palsy, died at Basildon University Hospital in October 2006.
Although his head had also become trapped during a stay at the hospital the previous year, no assessment of his needs was carried out, staff had no knowledge of the previous incident, and he was only monitored at irregular intervals, said the Health and Safety Executive, which prosecuted the case.
Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust admitted failing to ensure the health and safety of its patients, and this week was fined £50,000 and ordered to pay £40,000 costs.
But Andrew Lee, director of People First (Self Advocacy), which is run by people with learning difficulties, told Disability News Service: "How many people with learning difficulties have to die before we get good quality healthcare?"
He said people with learning difficulties still face a two-tier health system and a "lottery" on whether they were taken seriously by healthcare staff when seeking treatment for themselves or relatives.
Lee said his own experience showed little had changed since the inquiry, as he had found it "very difficult" to secure information about his wife's care when she was admitted to hospital.
There were similar problems last week when a friend was rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack.
Lee said: "The new government is talking about putting more power in the hands of doctors and nurses but they are the very people that are not giving us good accessible information.
"There is a respect and dignity issue and they need to think of us as people first and not as an inconvenience."
Two years ago, Sir Jonathan Michael's inquiry into access to healthcare for people with learning difficulties found "convincing evidence" that they had "higher levels of unmet need and receive less effective treatment".
Witnesses to his inquiry had reported "appalling examples of discrimination, abuse and neglect across the range of health services".
The inquiry was set up by the government in response to Mencap's Death by Indifference report, which accused the NHS of institutional discrimination and told how six people with learning difficulties had died unnecessarily in NHS care.
10 June 2010
RADAR awards will spread the word that equality pays
A leading disabled people's organisation is hoping that its annual awards will spread the message that spending money on disability equality is a good use of public resources in tough economic times.
Liz Sayce, chief executive of RADAR, was speaking at the launch of the charity's 44th annual People of the Year awards.
Sayce said that investing in people's achievements - through schemes such as RADAR's leadership programme - was the "best use of public money", while boosting accessibility and inclusive technology ensures that "scarce resources go further".
Caroline Waters, head of employment policy for BT, which hosted this week's launch at the BT Tower in London, said the awards would help spread awareness of the best examples of companies and individuals that have promoted inclusion.
Riam Dean said winning last year's young person of the year award had injected her with "a new lease of life" after her successful high profile discrimination case against her former employer Abercrombie & Fitch had left her "crushed" and her confidence "shattered".
She told the launch event that she had been "spreading the word" on social networking websites to other young disabled people about the battle for equality in the workplace.
Dean said she had also joined forces with the charity Changing Faces to promote "face equality" in the workplace, and had spoken to many companies about the "need to ride the wave of change".
The awards will be hosted by disabled children's TV presenter and actress Cerrie Burnell on 29 November at a ceremony in London.
This year there are awards for person of the year, young person of the year, care and support, careers and leadership, factual media, fictional media , accessibility provider, technology provider, as well as two new awards, for arts personality and sports personality of the year.
To nominate an organisation or individual for an award, or for details on how to attend the awards ceremony, visit www.radar.org.uk/awards-2010 or email gareth.parker@radar.org.uk
10 June 2010
EHRC warns government over spending cuts
The equality watchdog has warned the government not to breach its international human rights obligations to disabled people when deciding how to cut public spending.
Mike Smith, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission's (EHRC) disability committee, and an EHRC commissioner, spoke out on the first anniversary of Britain's ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Smith said the EHRC was "heartened" that the new coalition government had "pledged to tackle the stigma and prejudice that still persists towards disabled people, to reform our social care system and to promote employment opportunities".
But he said the government and public bodies should have "regard to their obligations" under the UN convention "when making the difficult spending decisions ahead".
He said: "Many disabled people rely on public services to achieve the most basic levels of human dignity and participate equally in society.
"For many, these services are an essential lifeline without which they would be unable to contribute to their families or community."
His comments came as the Treasury warned that the government's spending review - which will set spending limits for every government department until 2014-15 - would "comprehensively examine" spending on benefits.
The Treasury said "tough decisions" would need to be made in order to reduce the "unprecedented" public sector deficit, while the government was "committed to achieving the bulk of this" through cuts in spending rather than rises in taxes.
But it promised that the spending review, due to finish this autumn, would "make supporting those most in need a priority".
The Treasury's spending review framework states that the more that can be saved from reforming the welfare system and restraining public sector pay and pensions "the more the Government will be able to do to protect jobs and spending on frontline public services".
Neil Coyle, director of policy for Disability Alliance, said: "Consistent announcements that suggest potential belt-tightening for pensions and benefits are worrying."
He said DA would be examining more detailed government proposals closely when they were announced.
Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat care services minister Paul Burstow promised this week that more than £1.4 billion in Department of Health (DH) adult social care grants to local councils would go ahead as planned in 2010-11.
But three days later, Eric Pickles, the Conservative communities secretary, announced that the government was removing "ring fences" from a number of disability-related annual grants. This means councils will no longer have to spend the grants in those areas.
Social care grants where the ring-fence has been removed include a £30 million DH grant to help councils introduce a personalised adult social care system, a £51 million DH grant to support the resettlement of people with learning difficulties from the old long-stay hospitals, and grants to support people with HIV and AIDS and people who have had strokes.
With Pickles also announcing details of how councils would need to make savings of £1.166 billion this year, there are fears that the removal of ring-fencing could put services in these areas at risk.
9 June 2010
Government 'steps back' from rapid reassessment programme
The new coalition government has released the first details about its timetable for "reassessing" hundreds of thousands of disabled people who claim "old-style" incapacity benefit (IB).
There were fears that the government would start to reassess large numbers of people on IB this October, despite repeated concerns about the inflexibility and unfairness of the work capability assessment (WCA), the strict new test designed to assess disabled people's work readiness.
But Lord Freud, the new Conservative welfare reform minister, told the House of Lords this week that the government planned to begin with only a "small trial" from October 2010 to allow it to "test and learn from the process".
Responding to a question from the disabled Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Celia Thomas, Lord Freud said the "national reassessment programme" of people on IB would run from spring 2011 to March 2014.
About two million people still claim IB, rather than its replacement, employment and support allowance (ESA), which was introduced for new claimants in October 2008.
By spring 2011, there are still likely to be at least 1.5 million people left on IB, which could mean up to 10,000 long-term IB claimants being reassessed every week.
Lord Freud said: "We know this is a big undertaking and are working on plans to make the change happen as smoothly as possible for all customers."
He also confirmed that the government would evaluate how the ESA was working "in order to ensure that it meets its objective of helping people back to work".
But it is not yet clear whether the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will have the results from this independent review of the WCA before the trial begins in October.
Neil Coyle, director of policy for Disability Alliance, the disability poverty charity, said the government appeared to have changed its mind and opted for a slower-paced reassessment programme.
He welcomed Freud's statement because he said there needed to be improvements to the WCA before a national rollout.
He said: "Organisations like DA supported reform but are worried about how it has worked in practice."
He said an independent review would help ensure the WCA was "fit for purpose".
A DWP spokeswoman said coalition ministers were committed to an "independent statutory review" of the WCA every year for five years.
But she said there were no dates confirmed yet for when the first review would take place.
9 June 2010
Beds call for tough new licensing laws
Disabled campaigners have asked their local MPs to back calls for tough new laws that would prevent councils granting alcohol or entertainment licences to inaccessible venues.
The Central Beds Access Group (CBAG) wrote to its three local Bedfordshire Tory MPs - Nadine Dorries, Alistair Burt and Andrew Selous - after hearing of a new access law that could soon be introduced by the Scottish parliament.
The Scottish law would mean bars applying for new licences - as well as existing venues applying for major changes to their licences - would have to provide details of how accessible they were to disabled drinkers.
Roy Storey, CBAG's chair, welcomed the attempt to improve access in Scotland, but said he wanted the law to go further and ban councils from issuing licences to inaccessible venues.
In his email to the three MPs, Storey said the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) was "being ignored or misrepresented by those who are in a position to make a difference".
He said that only a tenth of pubs and clubs in his local village were accessible to disabled people.
Storey said: "It is totally unacceptable. It is time we bit the bullet and said we are letting down the disabled people of the UK."
He has also called on his local council to stop granting licences to inaccessible venues, arguing that doing so was a potential breach of its disability equality duty under the DDA.
But councillor David McVicar, Central Bedfordshire Council's portfolio holder for safer communities and healthier lifestyles, said the law did not allow local authorities to take access into consideration in granting licences.
He said the council took its duty to promote the DDA seriously and would be consulting with CBAG on new guidance for licence applicants, which would ensure that they paid "due consideration" to accessibility.
Roy Storey is keen to hear from disabled campaigners in other parts of the country who want to campaign for a change in the law. To contact him, visit www.centralbedsaccessgroup.co.uk or email him at roy.accessgroupmb@btopenworld.com
9 June 2010
Peers concerned over impact of more academies on disabled pupils
Several peers have raised fears about the impact on disabled pupils of a new government bill that will make it easier for schools to opt out of local authority control.
Crossbench and Labour members of the Lords raised a series of concerns during the second reading of the academies bill, mirroring concerns raised in recent weeks by disabled people's organisations such as the Alliance for Inclusive Education.
Lord Colin Low, the disabled crossbench peer, said he wanted the bill to be "disability-proofed" and made "fit for purpose to meet the needs of pupils with special educational needs (SEN)".
He called for more detail on how academies would ensure their admissions policies were fair to disabled children and those with SEN, and pledged to introduce amendments to ensure that the existing SEN framework applied to academies.
He also warned that the new legislation could weaken local education authorities and lead to the loss of their SEN expertise.
Lord Low said campaigners were concerned that the new academies would not be accountable to parents of disabled children and those with SEN, making it harder for them to ensure their children's needs were met.
Lord Brian Rix, another crossbench peer and president of Mencap, also raised concerns about the accountability of academies.
He said the government's equality impact assessment of its new bill found the proportion of pupils with SEN who achieved five good GCSEs - including English and maths - was lower in academies than the national average.
Baroness Morgan, a former Labour children's minister, warned that parents of children with autism were already reporting problems with admission to academies, while the Labour peer Baroness Massey said exclusions of children with SEN were disproportionately higher in academies.
Lord Turnbull, a crossbench peer, said academies "must accept an obligation to take their fair share of SEN children" and "must not be allowed to turn their backs and place the burden on the schools that remain with local education authorities".
Lord Hill, the Conservative junior education minister, promised that academies would have the same duties to meet the SEN code of practice as maintained schools (those funded by the local education authority).
He said local authorities would retain responsibility for SEN assessments and SEN statements, including funding and monitoring of pupils with SEN statements, and ensuring arrangements were in place for them.
He added: "Academies will have to ensure fair access and deliver provision. This is such an important area - I want to get it right."
The bill's committee stage is due to begin on 21 June.
Meanwhile, the Department for Education has refused to comment on reports that Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrat children and families minister, is to announce a review of the SEN system.
The Sunday Times reported that the review was "expected to consider tightening up the criteria" for children to be identified as having SEN.
Such a review would come only months after Brian Lamb completed a 21-month inquiry into the SEN system for the Labour government.
His inquiry called last December for urgent and major reform, and an end to the "culture of low expectations" for disabled children and those with SEN.
A Department for Education spokesman said the Sunday Times report was "speculation", and added: "At the moment there has been no announcement."
8 June 2010
Social care funding bill 'within two years'
The government is hoping to introduce new laws to reform the funding of adult social care and support within two years, the Department of Health (DH) has confirmed.
The government had already said it would set up an independent commission to find a "sustainable" way to reform social care funding. But it has now made it clear how quickly it plans to move.
The DH said it hoped to publish a white paper on care and support reform in the autumn of 2011, with new legislation following in the next Queen's speech, likely to be in November 2011.
A DH spokeswoman said she could not yet say whether there would be any disabled people on the commission, only that its membership would be decided "as soon as possible".
She also confirmed that no funding options had yet been ruled out, but that the commission would be "asked to offer advice, rapidly, on a sustainable structure of funding for long-term care".
The DH also confirmed that Labour's Personal Care at Home Act (PCHA) would not come into force. The act would have provided free personal care at home to people with the highest needs.
Anne Kane, policy manager for Inclusion London, said that government talk of "painful and deep spending cuts" conflicted with the urgent need for a high quality, national system of social care that respected choice and control, and that such talk was "inevitably fuelling worry about the future".
She said ministers' emphasis on the need for a "sustainable" system implied low public spending, while Inclusion London wanted to see a system that was "available to all regardless of income and respects independence and human rights".
And she said Inclusion London "deeply regretted" that the government was scrapping the PCHA, which "would have provided some care at home for people in desperate need".
Neil Coyle, director of policy for Disability Alliance, said implementation of any new system was unlikely before 2014, while the economic climate and government budget restrictions would mean disabled people "continue to lose support and experience isolation and exclusion to an even greater degree".
Coyle said there was widespread agreement among disabled people's organisations and other campaigners that action was "needed soon", and that the "simplest solution" would be a National Care Service funded through general taxation.
He said implementing the PCHA would have been "hugely welcome" if tied to "genuine resources", and that "not providing free personal care at home will continue to harm disabled people and their families and push many families into poverty".
8 June 2010
April News Archive
Campaigners attack government over hate crime delays
Furious campaigners have accused the government of an inexcusable and unacceptable delay in collecting and publishing national statistics on disability hate crime.
The Home Office had been due to start collecting figures from police forces this month. But the start date has now been delayed until April 2011.
Because of the election campaign, the Home Office declined to give a reason for the delay.
But Stephen Brookes, coordinator of the National Disability Hate Crime Network, said: We have been immensely let down by the inactions of the Home Office. It is totally inexcusable and unacceptable.
Tom Brake, a Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: Once again, the Home Office has proved itself incapable of carrying through with a simple promise.
It is not going to be possible for us to properly tackle these sickening hate crimes against disabled people until we have standardised recording of them.
It is unacceptable for the government to be dragging their feet on such an important issue.
Anne Novis, who leads on hate crime issues for the UK Disabled Peoples Council, said the lack of statistics would mean no strategic high level work to deal with the issue, no appropriate funding, no local initiatives ensured.
And she said it would be down to the toss of a coin whether disabled people would receive appropriate services on disability hate crime.
She added: To say we have been, yet again, let down by the Home Office does not do justice to the strength of feelings and concerns we have.
Novis pointed to the governments hate crime action plan, published last September, which stated: We will strengthen the evidence base on the nature and extent of hate crime, which will allow us to identify where we need to develop new, targeted policies to take forward our long-term vision.
This will enable us to monitor the effectiveness of our efforts to tackle hate crime.
Liz Sayce, chief executive of RADAR, said the delay was unacceptable and severely disappointing.
She said there were horrendous cases of hate crime, as well as day-to-day disability-related crimes, which were making disabled peoples lives an absolute misery.
Only last month, Jonathan Shaw, the minister for disabled people, told the all party parliamentary disability group that a Labour government would ensure a far greater focus on disability hate crime.
And this week, Catharine Arakelian, the Labour candidate for Chingford, told an election hustings event organised by Inclusion London that her own partys failure to mention disability hate crime in its manifesto was clearly wrong.
She added: I think it is probably a thing that is not recognised and without it being recognised as actually happening and affecting peoples lives, we are not dealing with it.
No-one from the Labour party was available to comment.
22 April 2010
Disabled woman secures £125,000 in landmark discrimination case
A disabled woman who secured a ground-breaking discrimination ruling from the House of Lords is to receive £125,000 in compensation.
Elizabeth Boyle, from Warrenpoint, County Down, Northern Ireland, had alleged disability and sex discrimination, victimisation and unfair selection for redundancy against her former employer, SCA Packaging.
A vital ruling in the case by the House of Lords last July also meant that more disabled people with fluctuating conditions would be protected by the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).
The DDA says that someone with a condition that does not currently have a substantial effect on them but varies in severity should still be viewed as disabled if they are likely to become substantially affected again in the future.
But the Law Lords ruled that this use of likely meant could well happen, rather than the previously accepted definition of more probable than not.
Boyle had worked for SCA Packaging for 32 years.
She had developed vocal nodules, which she helped to manage by speaking quietly, limiting the use of her voice, and other measures.
But her employer decided to remove partitions near her desk, even though it meant she would have to speak more loudly and risk her condition returning.
In October 2001, she began proceedings under the DDA, alleging she was being discriminated against through her employers failure to make reasonable adjustments.
Seven months later, she was made redundant and brought further claims, including victimisation under the DDA.
The company argued Boyle was not disabled as her condition no longer had an adverse effect on her life.
But after ruling in Boyles favour last July, and finding that she was a disabled person under the DDA, the Law Lords referred the case back to an industrial tribunal.
Boyle and SCA Packaging then agreed on the financial settlement without the case needing to be heard, although the company did not admit liability.
Boyle said: This has been a nine year battle that caused so much stress to me and my family.
However, because of the ruling made in my case, other disabled people can benefit too.
Eileen Lavery, head of strategic enforcement for the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, said the case had broadened the protection to disabled people under the DDA.
She said the Lords ruling was particularly important for people with conditions that can be controlled by treatment, or fluctuating conditions that have temporarily ceased to have an effect but are likely to recur, such as arthritis, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy.
22 April 2010
Channel 4s 2012 documentary will travel inside athletes bodies
A new documentary to be aired as part of Channel 4s commitment to Paralympic sport in the run-up to London 2012 will travel inside the bodies of some of Britains leading disabled athletes.
The 90-minute documentary will examine five British Paralympic athletes, using state of the art scanning equipment to create biomechanical portraits of their bodies and show how they reached the top in their sport.
The programme with the working title Inside Incredible Athletes is being made by Renegade Pictures, which used similar techniques for its series Extreme Bodies, including an examination of the bodies of conjoined twins and a person of restricted growth.
Renegade also produced The Twins Who Share A Brain, a one-off documentary about conjoined twins.
But Alison Walsh, Channel 4s disability executive, stressed that it would be an intelligent documentary that would introduce viewers to the ability, stamina and skill required to perform Paralympic sport at an elite level.
She said it would examine extraordinary athletes at the peak of their profession, combining science with stunning sporting performance sequences that will portray Paralympic sport in the best possible light.
ParalympicsGB which manages Britains Paralympians welcomed the documentary and stressed that it would not focus on the athletes impairments.
A ParalympicsGB spokeswoman admitted that they had initially had concerns when they heard about the documentary, but were completely reassured after meeting with Renegade.
She said: They will show how they are able to achieve what they are able to achieve on the sports field in a way that will portray them as high-performance athletes.
It is going to show Paralympic sport exactly how we see it, showing what incredible athletes they are. What they are not focusing on is the impairment aspect of that.
The programme was one of two new commissions announced by Channel 4, both of which will screen later this year.
The other is a weekly Saturday lunchtime series that will profile British Paralympic athletes and provide insight into Paralympic sport.
Channel 4 said the show would reveal the characters behind the competition, educate the public and raise the profile of Paralympic sports.
It will be fronted by TV presenter and former Paralympic basketball star Ade Adepitan and presenter and DJ Rick Edwards, with other reporters to include Paralympic hopeful Nathan Stevens and Paralympic swimming gold-medallist Liz Johnson.
Phil Lane, chief executive of ParalympicsGB, praised the two exciting, creative programmes and said they marked an important first step in our shared ambition to raise the profile of British Paralympic athletes and sports well before 2012.
Julian Bellamy, head of Channel 4, said: When we won the broadcast rights to the London 2012 Paralympic Games we promised wed provide the strongest pre-Games broadcast coverage ever seen on UK television and these two commissions are just the start.
Channel 4 has also launched its 2010 production trainee scheme and has reserved six places for disabled trainees as part of its commitment to develop disabled talent in the build-up to London 2012.
Applications close on 30 April. For more information, visit: http://4talent.channel4.com/extra/production-trainee-placements-2010
22 April 2010
Movement mourns loss of David Morris
The disability movement united this week to mourn the loss of David Morris, a hugely respected campaigner, artist and pioneer of the independent living movement, who died suddenly on Sunday.
The UK Disabled Peoples Council (UKDPC) said his passing left a major gap in our landscape, while other leading activists paid tribute to his passion, commitment and incredible contributions to equality and human rights.
There was a two-minute silence in his honour on Tuesday at an election hustings hosted by Inclusion London, the new pan-London Deaf and disabled peoples organisation that he helped develop.
Liz Sayce, chief executive of RADAR, said Morris had helped shape the independent living movement in the 1980s.
In 1989, he founded Independent Living Alternatives, which supports disabled people who need personal assistance. On its website, he described how disabled people have an inalienable right to independent living, but added: In essence, independent living is a misnomer: as disabled people we should be able to just think about living as anybody else.
Morris played a leading role in nearly every major development around disability equality in London over the last 10 years, including both Liberty Londons annual disability arts festival and the mayors Disability Capital event.
He had recently played a key role in the lead-up to the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, as the organising committees external access and inclusion coordinator, on secondment from his job with the Greater London Authority.
Last September, he told Disability Capital that 2012 was a chance to leave a real legacy for generations to come and that London in 2012 would see the largest ever number of disabled and Deaf people in any city at one time.
Kirsten Hearn, who chaired the Inclusion London event, told the audience of disabled activists that Morris would be the most enormous loss to our community.
She worked with him after he was appointed senior disability adviser to the then mayor, Ken Livingstone, and said he helped deliver Livingstones vision around access to transport, leading to the current fleet of low-floor, talking buses.
She said: Some of the changes and differences that were made in London for disabled people were made because Dave was dogged and persistent in all that he did.
He was a quiet but vociferous man. He didnt make a lot of audible noise but he never shut up. He would simply persist. I personally will miss him hugely and I am sure that many of us will.
Some also knew Morris as a talented artist and film-maker with his own production company, who was about to complete a short film for UKDPC on the importance of disabled people working together.
The disabled artist Ju Gosling said: Although David was best known as a campaigner, he was also an artist of formidable talent.
In the last two years in particular, he created a body of arthouse film work which brought together his personal memories and philosophy with music, poetry and art.
Julie Newman, acting chair of UKDPC, said Morris was a great networker who loved the cultural and arts aspects of the disability community, thrived on diversity, and was a strong and articulate supporter who would leave a major gap in our landscape.
Tara Flood, chief executive of the Alliance for Inclusive Education, said: Dave was not a nine-to-five activist. There was no divide between his personal and professional view when it came to his passion and commitment to inclusion and equality.
And Anne Novis, another leading activist, said Morris had been a great personal support, advocate and campaigner, and added: His sense of humour and the way he was really interested in disabled peoples experiences made him easy to work with and share about personal issues.
Sue Bott, director of the National Centre for Independent Living, said Morris had been a powerful advocate for all disabled Londoners but would be best remembered for his untiring commitment to independent living.
Liz Sayce, speaking for the Equality and Human Rights Commissions disability committee, paid tribute to his incredible contributions to independent living, human rights and the disability movement.
She said he had also made a major contribution to persuading the government to agree that there should be portability of support for disabled people.
Sayce remembered how Morris had told a meeting of the all party parliamentary disability group how he could not move from one London borough to another for fear of losing his essential social care package, noting wryly that his human rights were being sacrificed on the altar of local discretion.
Morris was also a vocal campaigner against the legalisation of assisted suicide, and Sayce said he had spoken out quietly and powerfully on the equal value of disabled and non-disabled peoples lives and the risk that legalising assisted suicide would re-enforce unequal value.
He also challenged disabled people to be more serious in addressing accessibility issues for people with neuro-diverse and mental health conditions.
Sayce said Morris had the courage to press for change, the thoughtfulness to do so effectively, the humour to engage people positively, and added: David was astute, reflective, humane and also hugely supportive to many friends and colleagues who will miss his intelligence and his spark.
We are the poorer for his passing but so much the richer for his contributions to equality and human rights in this country.
Several other activists who paid tribute to Morris were also his friends.
Tara Flood first met him when he was director of Hammersmith and Fulham Action on Disability and said he became a friend, great source of advice and support and an excellent drinking partner!
Ju Gosling described how Morris would host regular salons in his apartment in Limehouse, bringing together other musicians, artists and poets.
She said: He was also an experimental and innovative cook, and loved to hold dinner parties looking out over the Docklands skyline that appears in much of his visual art.
She had been working with him on a joint project to bring together disabled artists and athletes around 2012.
But she said her abiding memory of him would be singing Beatles songs together on a weekend away at Holton Lee, Dorset. David made it clear to the whole world that love is all you really need.
Julie Newman added: As a friend, I cant imagine passing Limehouse without remembering times that we spent together.
Eating splendid food that he had cooked with thought and love. Watching films and talking about art. Listening to poetry and meeting wonderfully talented people. Singing songs that were reminiscent of times gone by and laughing at silliness. Talking politics and dreaming of idealised worlds. Reconnecting with the fire of activism.
Just chilling out, drinking beer and watching the sun set on the rich panorama of London skyscapes. As my partner says, at this moment in time, the music has stopped.
21 April 2010
Hotlines will help disabled people facing election-day barriers
Telephone helplines staffed by voting rights experts will help disabled people who risk losing their right to vote at the general election.
Staff working on the Electoral Commissions national helplines on election day will be ready to help disabled people who are blocked from voting because of access barriers at their local polling station.
Since the last general election in 2005, new laws say local authorities should make sure their polling stations do not put disabled people at a disadvantage.
The disability charity Scope through its Polls Apart campaign has worked with the Electoral Commission to draw up an online guide to disabled peoples voting rights.
The guide includes information on the legal rights to request assistance to mark the ballot paper, view a large-print version of the ballot paper and gain assistance if they cannot enter the polling station.
It advises anyone who has problems voting on election day to contact their local authority. But if that doesnt work, staff on the helpline will try to enable them to make their vote count.
Abigail Lock, Scopes head of advocacy and campaigns, said she hoped the helpline would raise confidence among disabled people preparing to vote.
She said: It is something a number of disabled people have said they have wanted in the past, an extra avenue of support, and support gives confidence. Thats why I think it will be really important.
But she added: We are hoping that improved access will mean few people will need to resort to calling the helpline.
Local authorities are more aware now because they have to review their polling stations for access and because of the awareness we have raised through Polls Apart.
Scope is hoping disabled people will post their views about their voting experiences on the Polls Apart website, and fill out a Polls Apart survey form.
Lock added: Its really important that as many disabled people as possible fill out the survey so we can get a clearer picture of what has happened since the last general election.
We do need to identify those local authorities that are breaching their duties. If we have to name and shame, thats what we will do.
To download the guide or fill out the survey form, visit: www.pollsapart.org.uk/pages/voters.php
The Electoral Commission helplines are: 020 7271 0592 and 020 7271 0728.
20 April 2010
Crows Resistance receives US seal of approval
A British disabled film-makers acclaimed installation exploring the horrors of the targeted killing of disabled people in Nazi Germany is to be exhibited at one of Americas most renowned cultural venues.
Liz Crows Resistance: which way the future? is to be shown at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, even though Crow has yet to find a venue willing to exhibit it in London.
This week, the film installation was brought to Mansfield, where Crow was hoping it would receive similar acclaim as at its launch at DaDa Fest in Liverpool last November.
Crow said it was hugely exciting that Resistance would be exhibited by the Smithsonian, but she said she was frustrated at how difficult it had been to find exhibition spaces willing to host the installation in the UK.
She said: It seems to really connect with people and really get them thinking. My fear is that it will never realise that potential. It would be such a waste if it doesnt get out there.
The Aktion T4 programme is believed to have led to the targeted killing of as many as 200,000 disabled people in Germany, and possibly many thousands more, and became the blueprint for the Final Solution, through which the Nazis hoped to wipe out Jews, gay people and other minority groups.
Crows installation features a short drama about T4, a filmed conversation between three of the actors from the drama, and a series of voices of disabled people talking about their present-day, sharp end experiences of both discrimination and inclusion.
It explores the values that permitted the T4 programme to take place but also reveals how people found the courage to resist.
Crow said she tries to draw visitors out of the historical hopelessness of T4 into exploring how they as individuals could prevent the kind of oppression that surfaced in Nazi Germany.
She said: This is an episode of history that is virtually hidden, yet the values that underpinned it still echo through disabled peoples lives today.
Disablist hate crime, the campaign to legalise assisted suicide and pre-natal screening and abortion all challenge the worth of disabled peoples lives and even their right to exist, she said.
She added: The campaigns that were needed, the resistance that was needed during the Nazi regime, are still needed now. We still need to create change on the same kind of issues.
Disabled people who have visited the installation tended to be struck by its historical elements, she said, while non-disabled visitors tended to be affected most by the realisation that such oppression was still taking place today.
In the absence of such issues being debated during the election campaign, she said she hoped a tour of Resistance could become a platform for such issues to be discussed.
She said: I dont feel like this is a project of mine. I would love it if people took it and used it to create change.
Resistance is at The Old Library, Leeming Street, Mansfield, from Tuesday 20 April to Saturday 1 May, with public access from Monday to Friday, noon-2pm, and on Saturdays, from 11am-3pm.
For further information about the installation, visit www.roaring-girl.com
19 April 2010
Campaigners welcome historic contaminated blood ruling
Campaigners have won an historic legal challenge over the compensation paid by the government to disabled people affected by the NHS contaminated blood disaster.
A high court judge has told the government to reconsider its decision not to provide more generous compensation to those affected.
The ruling has been welcomed by people with haemophilia who were infected with contaminated NHS blood and blood products in the 1970s and 1980s, and have campaigned for fair compensation.
Nearly 2,000 people with haemophilia have so far died as a result of being infected with hepatitis C and HIV.
The judicial review was brought by Andrew March, a member of TaintedBlood, the user-led group that campaigns for justice for those affected.
His lawyers argued that the government should have accepted the recommendation of an independent inquiry into the scandal, led by Lord Archer of Sandwell, that compensation should be at least as generous as that paid by the Irish government.
The UK government argued that the Irish government only paid higher levels of compensation because it accepted it had been at fault.
But, allowing the claim for judicial review, Mr Justice Holman concluded that the UK government was wrong and that the Irish compensation payments had been made on compassionate grounds.
He said the UK government might have reached a different decision if it had correctly focussed on, and grappled with, the compassionate basis of Irish payments.
But he warned campaigners of false optimism, as the allocation of resources was entirely a matter for the government and they have said, in effect, that they cannot afford to pay more.
A TaintedBlood spokeswoman welcomed the ruling and said the government would now have to reconsider their original decision and re-make it based on a lawful and factual basis.
She added: This time we would ask that they refrain from taking such a cavalier attitude to such a crucial question.
Lord Alf Morris, president of the Haemophilia Society, said it was a historic decision and most warmly welcomed by the haemophilia community.
And Matt Gregory, vice-chair of the Haemophilia Society, said: This decision means that the governments justification for its total failure to live up to the standards set by Ireland is now in tatters.
A fair settlement for everyone affected by the disaster has been brought significantly closer today.
A Department of Health spokeswoman said: The department is aware of the decision reached in the judicial review, and will now consider the position.
19 April 2010
March News Archive
Guide Dogs secures shared streets court victory
A disability charity has won a high court victory in its battle to stop a development in
Londons tourist heartland that puts the safety of blind and partially-sighted people at risk.
The development of Exhibition Road by Kensington and Chelsea council is only the latest in a series of shared street schemes introduced by local authorities across the country.
Such designs usually remove kerbs so motorists and pedestrians can share the space, so they then have to make eye contact to establish who has the right of way.
The charity Guide Dogs says this and the absence of kerbs, which people with guide dogs and long canes use to navigate, risks the safety of blind and partially-sighted pedestrians.
Guide Dogs yesterday (Thursday) won the right in the high court to challenge the councils plans through a judicial review.
The charity whose campaign against shared streets is backed by nearly 40 organisations, including the UK Disabled Peoples Council, RADAR, Deafblind UK and Transport for All has been raising concerns about the plans for more than five years.
Exhibition Road is used by an estimated 19 million pedestrians a year and runs from Hyde Park past the Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Tom Pey, director of external affairs for Guide Dogs, said: We have been seeking a solution which works for all users of the area around Exhibition Road, with a particular focus on the needs of blind and partially-sighted people.
As already proved by several misguided schemes in other cities, the lack of boundaries makes these streets extremely difficult to navigate, and therefore very frightening.
He said the council had been unreasonable in its refusal to take the concerns seriously.
A Kensington and Chelsea council spokesman said it was disappointed with the courts decision.
He said the council took the safety of all road users extremely seriously and had been working with Guide Dogs and other disability organisations since 2004 to ensure their needs were incorporated in the scheme.
He said Exhibition Road was in urgent need of development due to overcrowded pavements and dangerous road crossings, and the new scheme would include clear visual and tactile delineators and would improve the experience for all who use the area, particularly wheelchair users, the elderly and those with pushchairs who will enjoy increased pedestrian space, the single surface and traffic reduced to less than 20mph.
4 March 2010
Scooter users could be forced to take test and buy insurance
The government could be set to force users of mobility scooters and powered wheelchairs to undergo training, take a test and buy insurance, following renewed safety concerns.
Transport minister Sadiq Khan has announced a three-month consultation on reforms aimed at modernising laws on mobility vehicles, which include both powered wheelchairs and scooters.
He said: Mobility vehicles are a vital lifeline for many people and we want to ensure that everyone who needs one is able to use them safely and securely.
The consultation document points to a growing concern about safety particularly with scooters although it says evidence suggests a very low number of injuries.
Up to 330,000 people use a mobility vehicle, while hospital figures suggest fewer than 40 people a year are severely injured by scooters, with around 95 per cent of injuries to the drivers.
The consultation asks how to reduce the number of injuries caused to pedestrians, and whether laws should be different for mobility scooters and powered wheelchairs.
Other questions include whether mobility vehicle-users should have to take out third party insurance, undergo compulsory training and pass a safety assessment.
The consultation also asks whether class three vehicles those that travel at up to eight mph should be allowed to go faster when used on roads, and whether the government should introduce new criminal offences of careless or dangerous driving of a mobility vehicle.
Other possibilities include lowering the minimum age for using a class three vehicle below 14, and allowing design changes so that a user could legally carry a baby or small child on their mobility vehicle.
And the consultation asks whether there should be stricter enforcement of the legal duty to register class three vehicles. Registration is currently free, but vehicles must display a tax disc. The registration scheme could also be extended to class two vehicles.
Helen Smith, director of policy and campaigns for the charity Mobilise, said she believed there should be changes in the law because of the increasing number of scooter-users and the minority of people who should not be riding them the way they do.
She said: I think compulsory training is a good idea. People that can drive safely have nothing to fear.
Our members would like regulation because they feel that a small minority give them a bad name.
And she said compulsory third party insurance was just common sense.
The Department for Transport consultation ends on 28 May.
4 March 2010
Campaigners say government must release work test figures
Frustrated campaigners have called on the government to release crucial statistics about its controversial new work capability test.
They spoke out after new research for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) revealed that both benefits staff and disabled people who have undergone the test had major concerns about the work capability assessment (WCA).
The WCA was introduced in October 2008 to test applicants for employment and support allowance (ESA), the governments new out-of-work disability benefit.
But disability organisations and other campaigners have repeatedly raised concerns about the number of disabled people being found fit for work after taking the tough and inflexible WCA.
The researchers talked to staff working on the ESA, and ESA applicants, between May and July last year.
Staff expressed concerns at the stringency and lack of flexibility of the WCA and that many people who were told they were fit for work-related activity had unexpectedly severe health problems.
The research also reported concerns about a large backlog of appeals against WCA results.
Neil Coyle, director of policy for Disability Alliance, said the research backed up what campaigners had been telling the government.
He said the government was refusing to provide statistics showing how disabled people with different impairments were being treated under the new system.
He and other campaigners say the WCA is too inflexible to cope with fluctuating conditions such as mental ill-health, ME or MS.
Coyle said: Disability organisations cannot assist the government in improving the WCA or ESA without more information about what the barriers are within the system. It is going to cost a fortune in appeals unless the WCA is improved.
Coyle said some disabled people were being assessed as fit for work and not eligible for ESA and told to apply instead for jobseekers allowance but after winning appeals were placed in the ESA support group for those who are too disabled to undertake any work-related activity.
Jonathan Shaw, the minister for disabled people, said: This research was carried out some time ago soon after the benefit was introduced and we have made considerable improvements since then.
We continue to see where improvements and changes are needed to ensure that ESA is working as it should be.
A DWP spokesman said they were currently unable to provide the data that Disability Alliance has called for as it was not held centrally and we are not confident at this stage that it is robust enough to consider publication.
He added: We are working on collating and quality assuring the data and will consider publication in due course.
Meanwhile, Shaw has announced new targets that aim to help more people with mental health conditions and learning difficulties to stay in work through the access to work (ATW) scheme.
From next month, 2,000 people with learning difficulties and up to 1,500 people with mental health conditions will be guaranteed ATW funding.
Shaw said a disappointingly low number of people with severe mental health conditions or learning disabilities were receiving ATW funding, and the government recognised it needed to do more to help them find and stay in work.
Last year, more than 32,000 disabled people received ATW funding to provide support in the workplace, but the latest figures show that fewer than one per cent gave mental health as their main impairment.
The government has promised to double the ATW budget to £138 million by 2013/14.
Shaw announced the targets at a House of Commons exhibition to mark the 40th anniversary of the passing of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act.
4 March 2010
New improvements to equality bill, but concerns remain
New legal duties to provide accessible information should be a major step forward for blind and partially-sighted people and others with print disabilities, according to a disabled peer.
Lord Colin Low was speaking after the government introduced a new amendment to its equality bill, as the bill completed its report stage in the House of Lords.
The new duty makes it clear that businesses and public bodies would have to take reasonable steps to provide information in an accessible format so as to avoid disabled people being placed at a substantial disadvantage.
Baroness Thornton, for the government, said: It is important that all kinds of organisations consider the information they provide to their audiences and what steps they may need to take to bring themselves into line with the duty.
She said the amendment could be a turning point for people with information disabilities.
Lord Low said the move was potentially a major step forward for anyone with a print disability of any kind and provides a much more solid basis for robust enforcement action by regulators, advocacy organisations and disabled people themselves.
He said that businesses and public sector bodies would now need to think carefully about what they need to do to comply with this duty and promptly take action, as I expect this duty to be vigorously enforced.
The government also accepted two other amendments that should strengthen disabled peoples protection from discrimination.
One set of amendments, introduced by Baroness Wilkins, would strengthen the duty to provide reasonable adjustments in education making it clear that the duty is anticipatory, so schools would have to predict the adjustments that future disabled pupils might need, rather than just reacting to a request from an individual pupil.
The other amendment defines the term substantial disadvantage when dealing with the duty to make reasonable adjustments as more than minor or trivial.
Caroline Ellis, joint deputy chief executive of RADAR, welcomed the three changes and said there had been major progress on the bill in recent weeks.
But she said there were still major concerns around the bills public sector duties to promote equality, which were currently vague and unenforceable and would lead to legal challenges if not tightened by the government.
She said there was a very real risk that the duties would be weaker than the current disability equality duty.
Meanwhile, the governments personal care at home bill completed its committee stage in the Lords. Its report stage is due on 17 March.
4 March 2010
Autism strategy savaged by campaigners over weak language
The first national strategy on autism has been savaged by leading campaigners with autism for its failure to demand real change from councils and health trusts.
The new government strategy, which aims to help adults with autism in England live independently in a society that understands them, was promised as part of last Novembers Autism Act.
But there will be little new government money just £500,000 to help develop autism awareness training with the strategy focusing instead on how to make existing policies work better.
A plan describing how improvements will be delivered in its first year will be published later this month, with statutory guidance for health and social care bodies due in December.
The strategy calls for a fundamental change in which a diagnosis of autism leads to a person-centred assessment of need which will be the key to unlocking care services throughout a persons lifetime, including an offer of personal budgets and direct payments.
And it reminds public bodies of their duty to make reasonable adjustments under the Disability Discrimination Act to improve access to services in areas such as education, healthcare and public transport.
Several measures around mental health and employment announced by the government last December will also apply to adults with autism, including access to internships, and more flexibility with access to work payments.
A national autism programme board, co-chaired by Phil Hope, the care services minister, will oversee progress on the strategy and include at least one person with autism. The government has also promised to review progress on the strategy in 2013.
The Autistic Rights Movement UK (ARM UK), which is run by people with autism, welcomed the publication of an autism strategy, and the new programme board, but said the strategy was unlikely to deliver real change.
It said it was not only bitterly disappointed but frankly baffled by the language used in the strategy, with words such as may and might instead of must and will.
ARM UK said that a strategy as weak and equivocal as this one makes the Autism Act meaningless, although it added: It might be that the delivery plan is the missing part without which the part that we have fails to make sense. We certainly hope so.
It also criticised the derisory funding of £500,000, even though last summers National Audit Office report said investing in services for people with autism could end up saving tens of millions of pounds.
And ARM UK called for people with autism to have far more involvement in shaping the changes that are so urgently needed to achieve true equality, and said the strategy should be subject to a proper public consultation.
It also called for comprehensive and fully funded structures at local, regional and national levels, such as a national forum for autistic people, regional autism forums and local autism partnership boards, similar to those that came out of the Valuing People learning difficulties white paper.
Anya Ustaszewski, who has autism and is vice-chair of the strategys external reference group, described the strategy as an exciting milestone but said it was important that the delivery plan contains clear measures for local authorities and support from the Department of Health to deliver them.
Meanwhile, the National Autistic Society Scotland and other campaigners and organisations took part in an event at the Scottish parliament calling for a national autism strategy for Scotland, backed up by a Scottish autism bill.
4 March 2010
Disabled protesters march on Ofcom over offensive hate language
People with learning difficulties have marched on the offices of the communications watchdog Ofcom in protest at its failure to condemn the use of offensive, disablist language on a Channel 4 show.
Footballer-turned-actor Vinnie Jones caused outrage when he joked on Big Brothers Big Mouth that presenter Davina McCall walked like a retard, with McCall laughing and replying: I do not walk like a retard.
Channel 4 eventually apologised after receiving complaints about the incident in late January.
But campaigners were shocked when Ofcom failed to uphold their subsequent complaint.
In its decision, Ofcom said the use of the word was part of light hearted banter and not directed at someone with a mental or physical disability and so was not used with the intention to describe or offend members of society with learning difficulties.
It also said the use of the word was not entirely at odds with the established nature of this programme, which is known for its lively and outspoken content.
Ofcom merely advised Channel 4 that the repetition of the word by McCall was unfortunate and it would have been more appropriate to move on rapidly instead of discussing it further.
Furious at the decision, disabled protesters backed by the charities Respond and The Elfrida Society this week delivered letters to the chair and chief executive of Ofcom.
The letters were signed by nine people with learning difficulties, eight of whom are involved in running Londons successful Wild Bunch club nights. Most of them took part in the protest.
Their letter says: We feel let down by Ofcom, which is perpetuating a negative image of disabled people, by not condemning guests and presenters who use hate speech on TV thereby signaling to viewers that this is acceptable.
The letter says Joness walk mirrored the actions of the young thugs who persecuted Fiona Pilkington and her daughter Francecca. Pilkington killed herself and Francecca, who had learning difficulties, after they were the victims of a sustained hate campaign.
Jackie Ryan, one of the protesters, said they were really annoyed with Ofcoms decision not to uphold the complaint.
She said: I think its out of order. Ofcom should do something about it.
We were extremely cross. They need to look at themselves in the mirror and see how they feel.
And she said Vinnie Jones and Davina McCall should be forced to apologise on television.
Ofcom said it was now reviewing its decision.
Channel 4 said it regretted that McCall had not admonished Jones for his comment and apologised to viewers at the time.
And she said the comments had been removed from the video-on-demand version of the programme.
4 March 2010
Set-up of EHRC was flawed and inefficient
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) was not ready for business and should have delayed its launch in 2007 because of a flawed and inefficient set-up process, according to a report by a committee of MPs.
The public accounts committee report says only 10 of 25 directors were appointed by the time the EHRC launched in October 2007, the management team lacked the right balance of skills, and its business plan had not been finalised.
And the report criticises EHRC chair Trevor Phillips for failing to ensure his board reviewed and scrutinised progress in setting up the commission more closely.
The committee also said they were surprised and concerned that it cost nearly £39 million to set up the commission.
Their report which follows similar criticisms by the National Audit Office (NAO) last year says the government made serious errors in setting up the commission, with the EHRC having no control over which staff left the Disability Rights Commission and the two other legacy commissions.
This early exit scheme, which cost about £11 million, led to a large loss of staff with valuable skills and left the EHRC 140 people short and with skills gaps in key areas.
The EHRC then took on seven former staff from the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) as consultants, even though they had taken compensation under this scheme.
They were paid £630,000 for their CRE severance packages and nearly £340,000 to be rehired as EHRC consultants at up to £822 per day without the necessary approval from the Treasury.
The committee said Phillips recognised his personal share of responsibility and that the board did not exercise the level of scrutiny it might have done, despite clearly visible early warning signs.
Edward Leigh MP, the Conservative chairman of the committee, said there were still weaknesses in the EHRCs control over staff costs and that this was not the way this committee expects public bodies to be run.
An EHRC spokeswoman said the committee and the NAO had acknowledged the extreme pressures it was under to launch on 1 October, 2007.
She said: Under these circumstances, the commission made mistakes for example not making an adequate case for re-engaging several former members of staff.
We have accepted these criticisms from the PAC and as the NAO has recognised we are taking steps to improve our financial and performance reporting, and strengthen our governance arrangements and other control systems.
4 March 2010
ELECTION 2010: Lib Dems come up empty-handed on disability
The Liberal Democrat shadow minister for disabled people has failed to lay out any of his partys disability policies in a puzzling performance in front of a packed meeting of campaigners, activists and fellow politicians.
John Barrett MP was speaking at a meeting of the all party parliamentary disability group, where he and his opposite numbers in the Conservative and Labour parties were given a platform to lay out some of their disability policies.
The trio were told that disabled people had suggested more than 80 policies that would help the next government to achieve disability equality, following a request from Baroness Jane Campbell and Labour MP Roger Berry, the groups co-chairs.
The policies suggested by disabled people covered independent living, inclusion, an end to disability poverty, access and the need for enforceable rights to equality.
But when given seven minutes to lay out his partys disability policies, Barrett who is stepping down at the next election said he genuinely believed that no one party has all the good people and all the good ideas.
He said the country was still in the dark ages when it comes to disability and there needed to be a major step change with government departments, the benefits system, local authorities, employers and society, while life should not be a battle day in day out.
He added: Independent living is absolutely vital being able to have control of ones own life is the key to a fair society.
He also said disability would run through his partys policies on housing, health, education, work and pensions, with equality and fairness at the heart of the manifesto.
But he failed to outline a single specific disability policy, although in response to a question later in the meeting, he appeared to suggest a Liberal Democrat government would review the complexity of the benefits system and ensure that people could access the information they needed to receive the support they were entitled to.
He said: I think that politicians have got to make sure people get what they are entitled to as quickly as possible.
No-one from Barretts party was available to comment afterwards on why he had been unable to describe any Liberal Democrat disability policies at the meeting.
4 March 2010
ELECTION 2010: Tory shadow says new work support is key policy
The Conservative shadow minister for disabled people has said that one of his key election policies will be how to get more disabled people into work.
Mark Harper MP was speaking to a meeting of the all party parliamentary disability group, before an audience that included leading disabled campaigners and charity representatives.
Harper said his party would only make election promises it knew it could deliver, and focused strongly on Conservative plans to use projected benefits savings to provide support to find jobs for a significant number of disabled people who are unemployed but able to work.
He said his party would pay private and voluntary sector providers of employment support by results - according to whether they found disabled people sustainable jobs that lasted at least a year.
Harper also said a Conservative government would ensure that care and support services offered to disabled people were properly personalised and fitted to the needs of the individual.
He said: Too many times, disabled people are expected to fit their lives around the care and support they get.
And he said his party very much support government moves towards individual budgets and direct payments, but that they wanted to see that go much further and faster.
His party would also retain disability living allowance (DLA) and attendance allowance (AA), following suggestions that the government could scrap DLA and AA for those over 65 and use the savings to help pay for local authority social care services.
Harper said a Conservative government would also simplify the benefits system to make sure it is simple for people to use.
It would also repeal section 141 of the Mental Health Act, which states that MPs who are sectioned for at least six months must lose their seats.
But when asked by Simone Aspis, from the Alliance for Inclusive Education, how his party would secure disabled peoples rights to access mainstream education following his partys manifesto commitment to end the bias towards the inclusion of children with special needs in mainstream schools Harper said his party believed parents should have the option to choose a special or mainstream school for their child.
3 March 2010
ELECTION 2010: Minister says roadmap is key to Labours disability policies
The minister for disabled people has said that disabled people have shaped Labours disability policies for the next election.
Jonathan Shaw MP was speaking to a meeting of the all party parliamentary disability group that was packed with disabled campaigners and representatives of disability charities.
Shaw said a Labour government would focus on the 14 areas such as discrimination, independent living, social care and transport that were outlined in the Office for Disability Issues Roadmap last December.
The Roadmap details how the government plans to work towards disability equality by 2025 and Shaw said the 14 strands had been chosen by disabled people.
He also said the government had announced the eight trailblazer councils that would pilot the new right to control, which would be central to improving independent living.
Right to control will put money from funding sources such as community care services, disabled facilities grants and independent living funds into single pots of money for disabled people to use as they wish.
Shaw also said the government would need to find sustainable ways to ensure user-led organisations could provide vital advocacy and support for disabled people.
And he said a Labour government would ensure a far greater focus on disability hate crime.
He said the government would also work to ensure disabled people took part as paid staff and as volunteers in the Olympic and Paralympic Games in London in 2012.
He added: That has an enormous opportunity to impact on attitudes, and changing attitudes changes behaviour.
He told the meeting that disabled people should judge us on our record and our ambition, as laid out in priorities not chosen by the Labour Party but chosen by disabled people.
But when asked by Simone Aspis, from the Alliance for Inclusive Education, how his party would secure disabled peoples rights to access mainstream education, Shaw said he agreed with his Conservative opposite number Mark Harper that parents should have the choice of whether their child attended a special or mainstream school.
3 March 2010
Debenhams puts disabled model in the picture
A leading department store says it has become the first high street retailer to use pictures of a disabled model in a fashion advertising campaign.
Debenhams is using shots of wheelchair-user Shannon Murray online and in window displays in its Glasgow, Guildford, Oxford Street (London) and Nottingham branches, and plans to roll them out across all its stores.
The idea of using a disabled model came from two disabled presenters who took part in Channel 4s fashion makeover show How to Look Good Naked.
Journalist Nikki Fox and actress and writer Natasha Wood launched a campaign for disabled people to be represented on the high street, as part of the shows three-part special on disabled women earlier this year.
Murray has joined three non-disabled models in images to promote the Principles by Ben de Lisi fashion range in Debenhams.
Michael Sharp, deputy chief executive of Debenhams, said: We cater for women of all shapes and sizes, young and old, non-disabled and disabled, so we wanted our windows to reflect this choice.
When Nikki and Natasha approached us with the idea, we didnt have to think twice.
We are proud to be the first high street retailer to deliver this. We only wished we had done it sooner.
Fox praised the store for using Murray in its campaign, and said: Its a really big deal. If seeing Shannon helps another disabled person, then weve done well.
Murray said she was proud to be part of such a big move towards positive representation of disability in high street fashion.
And Sophie Morgan, a disabled model and campaigner, said the Debenhams campaign was fantastic and an exciting development.
She said she hoped the retailer would continue to use disabled models, and she believed the campaign would have a positive impact on both disabled and non-disabled people.
She said: Definitely it helps the disabled community with style tips and inspiration and it is quite encouraging to know that even if you are in a wheelchair you can still be beautiful and a model.
And its great for the non-disabled community to know that there are beautiful disabled women out there who can model.
Debenhams said it was committed to using disabled models in other photographs, and was planning a second photo shoot this summer, with images again being used instore and online.
2 March 2010
February News Archive
Equality bill amendment 'will boost number of accessible taxis'
Delighted campaigners have welcomed proposed new laws that will force many local authorities to allow more wheelchair-accessible taxis onto the streets.
The new amendment to the government's equality bill was proposed by the disabled peer Baroness Wilkins and backed by a string of fellow peers - and accepted by the government - during the bill's committee stage.
The amendment will mean that local authorities that have introduced policies to control taxi numbers will not be able to refuse a licence for a wheelchair-accessible vehicle if the area does not have enough accessible taxis.
Baroness Wilkins, a wheelchair-user herself, said provision of accessible transport was "essential for equality of opportunity" but councils with "quantity-control policies" and relatively few or no accessible taxis can refuse licence applications for wheelchair-accessible vehicles.
She said this can leave wheelchair-users who travel to such areas by train "stranded" once they arrive.
She added: "One must also think what it means for those living in the area when they need to get to an urgent appointment or visit friends and have a social life."
For the government, Baroness Thornton said: "It is unacceptable that a licensing authority which controls taxi numbers can routinely refuse applications for wheelchair-accessible taxis when it has very few wheelchair-accessible taxis in the district or, indeed, none at all.
"This new clause provides an ideal means of enhancing accessible taxi provision in these areas."
She said the government would consult before deciding on the minimum proportion of taxis in a local authority area that should be wheelchair-accessible.
Geraldine Des Moulins, chief officer of Brighton and Hove Federation of Disabled People, welcomed the amendment and said it should make it easier for wheelchair-users to find taxis.
She said researchers had found that a wheelchair-user in Brighton waits four times as long as a non-disabled person for a taxi.
Her organisation persuaded Brighton and Hove City Council to announce a review of taxi services for disabled people last month.
Des Moulins said: "We have disabled people who will not go out because they do not know if they will get a taxi to get home again."
She said the new laws would help, but there also needed to be a "culture shift within the taxi trade", with drivers often refusing to pick up wheelchair-users.
The equality bill has now completed its committee stage in the Lords, with the report stage due to begin on 2 March.
11 February 2010
Government research follows 'increasing concerns' on forced marriage
The government is funding new research into disabled people who are victims of forced marriages, following increasing concerns about the scale of the problem.
News of the research emerged after a man was jailed for trying to sell his disabled sister, who has learning difficulties, into a forced marriage.
Michael Wright, 22, from Swindon, was arrested by officers from the UK Border Agency as he arrived with his sister for the ceremony at Reading Register Office with would-be groom Ligang Qiao last August.
Wright had agreed to let Qiao marry his sister - in exchange for £8,000 - to aid his application to stay in the UK once his visa ran out.
Wright pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to assisting unlawful entry into the UK, and perjury, and was jailed this week for four years. Qiao and two other Chinese nationals were jailed for between 15 months and two years each, and will be deported at the end of their sentences.
Detective Inspector Andy Cummins, of the UK Border Agency, said it was a "despicable crime" and Wright had "attempted to exploit a member of his own family for his own financial gain", while the other gang members "sought to take advantage of a vulnerable woman".
A Foreign Office spokesman said its Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) - run jointly with the Home Office -had seen "a number" of cases where disabled people were forced into marriage, either by families trying to provide a disabled relative with a long-term carer or for visa reasons.
He said: "Accurate statistics for forced marriage are very difficult to compile, given its often-clandestine nature, but the incidence among people with disabilities has been the subject of increasing concern over recent years.
"The FMU are funding research to look into this area, and to compare best practice in responses. The findings will inform the unit's future work."
Meanwhile, the Equality and Human Rights Commission is preparing to investigate the problem of disabled women who are forced into marriage.
The EHRC's disability committee will look at the issue as part of the commission's Violence Against Women programme.
Anyone who is worried that they might be forced into marriage or is worried about a friend or relative can call the Forced Marriage Unit in confidence on 020 7008 0151.
10 February 2010
Government adds confusion to Eagle's reserved posts comments
The Government Equalities Office has added to the confusion caused by a government minister who told MPs that it was illegal to reserve jobs solely for disabled people.
Maria Eagle, an equalities minister and former minister for disabled people, told the communities and local government committee two weeks ago that it was illegal to reserve posts under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and would remain so under the equality bill.
She has now been forced to write to the committee, after it wrote to her "seeking clarification" of her comments.
During questioning from the committee about the equality bill, Eagle said that "positive action" - favouring the disabled person when faced with two equally qualified job candidates - was legal and would stay legal under the bill.
But she also said that only allowing disabled applicants to apply for a particular job was illegal and would remain so in the new bill.
Reserving posts for disabled people is a widespread practice, both by disabled people's organisations and across the disability sector, and campaigners were left bemused by her comments.
A Government Equalities Office spokeswoman said: "Everybody has the right to be treated fairly and employers are not allowed to discriminate when hiring staff.
"However, there is an exemption where a particular characteristic is a requirement of the job - for example, an organisation providing counselling services for young deaf people might require its counsellors to be deaf in order to share life experiences and use British Sign Language with their clients.
"This is the case under the DDA and the equality bill will not change this. Maria Eagle has written to the select committee to make this clear."
But the spokeswoman declined to comment when asked whether Eagle was admitting she had made a mistake, or whether she stood by her evidence.
11 February 2010
Councils fail information test on personal budgets
Local authorities are failing to provide disabled people with accurate information on personal budgets, according to a national disability charity.
Livability, which provides services such as care homes and supported living, reviewed more than 100 local authorities across England and found nearly half of their websites contained no information on personal budgets - which allow people to take control of their own social care funding.
Almost half of telephone enquiries about personal budgets were misdirected and almost a quarter of the councils could not provide any information on personal budgets at all.
Fewer than one in 30 local authorities were able to recommend additional sources of information.
Only two councils, the City of London and Portsmouth City Council, scored ten out of ten for the information they provided.
Meanwhile, a survey commissioned by Livability of more than 500 disabled young adults found nearly nine in ten had never heard of personal budgets.
A Livability spokeswoman said councils themselves seemed to be confused about terminology, and often confused personal budgets, individual budgets (another form of self-directed support piloted by the government, which included different funding streams besides adult social care) and direct payments.
Mary Bishop, chief executive of Livability, said the results were "extremely worrying".
She said: "Personal budgets have the potential to transform the lives of disabled people by giving them choice and control and yet awareness of them is woefully inadequate."
Mark Harper, the Conservative shadow minister for disabled people, said it was clear there was "still a great deal more to do to ensure that disabled people up and down the country can take advantage of personal budgets".
He said the government should "show more leadership" and "impress upon local authorities the importance of making these opportunities available for disabled people".
Livability called on the government to run a national awareness-raising campaign aimed at disabled people.
A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "Personal budgets offer people choice and control over their care and support.
"Councils have been running local pilots and 30 have already started rolling out personal budgets across their areas.
"We expect the others to follow over the next six months. We are supporting councils to achieve this transformation by offering guidance and a £500 million investment over three years.
"We expect councils to provide information and advice on personal budgets as the roll-out takes place."
10 February 2010
Care watchdog praises improvements but demands radical change
The care regulator has called for a "fundamental cultural shift" away from a "one-size-fits-all approach" and towards the personalisation of services.
The call from the Care Quality Commission came in its first annual report to parliament on the state of health and adult social care in England.
The report says there have been steady improvements in social care and health, despite "pockets of poor practice".
But the CQC is concerned that disabled people's needs in many areas have to be "substantial" before they can receive social care support from the council.
The proportion of adult social care services rated as good or excellent rose from 69 per cent in 2008 to 77 per cent in 2009, but there was still "unacceptable variation", with a small number of providers failing to meet minimum standards of safety and quality.
And although spending on direct payments in 2008/09 increased by nearly a third on the previous year, this was still only four per cent of councils' overall spending on care.
The report also calls for a "real acceleration in joining up health and social care and centring it on people's needs".
And it points to three particular areas of concern, with performance on safety, safeguarding and staff training varying widely across both social care and health care, "despite overall improvement in recent years".
Dame Jo Williams, CQC's acting chair, warned that "trends such as increasing demand and rising expectations will be exacerbated by pressure on finances".
This meant a need for "radical changes" in organisation and delivery of services, "shifting the culture away from a one-size-fits-all approach to care that puts the needs of individuals and carers at the centre of everything".
Care services minister Phil Hope said the report "recognises the major improvements that have been made across health and social care services".
He pointed to government plans to bring in new laws on safeguarding adults, and he said the government would "shortly" publish its care and support white paper, with plans for a "simple, fair and more affordable" national care service, while its personal care at home bill would help those with the highest needs.
The CQC has also released a new five-year strategy.
Its five priorities will be: ensuring care is centred on people's needs and protects their rights; "championing" joined up care; "acting swiftly" to help eliminate poor quality care; promoting high quality care; and effective regulation.
10 February 2010
Scotland's ten-year plan to 'mainstream' personalisation
The Scottish government has launched a draft ten-year strategy it hopes will lead to personalised, "self-directed" services becoming the "mainstream" way for disabled people to access the social care support they need.
The draft strategy on self-directed support says those who use care and support services should be seen "as equal citizens with rights and responsibilities".
The strategy aims to address barriers to greater take-up of direct payments, including "assumptions and attitudes" about those who might benefit, limitations on the use of the money they are given, and "a vested interest in the status quo" by some professionals.
The document says there is "significant scope" to increase the number of people receiving direct payments, which should be "available to all but imposed on no-one".
But it warns that guidance on eligibility for free personal care in Scotland had found evidence of reduced services to those with lower-level needs, and suggests a review of the use of eligibility criteria.
The Scottish government will also work with social care and health training and qualification bodies to integrate teaching of self-directed support into their courses, according to the strategy.
And it will meet with Department for Work and Pensions officials to find ways to fit the strategy and the benefits system together.
It will also discuss how to include disabled students' allowance and other education funds in self-directed support packages.
The Scottish government will consult this year on the need for a self-directed support bill to "address some of the gaps in eligibility".
The draft strategy says that by 2015 there should be a better quality of life for individuals, a "radical increase" in uptake of self-directed support, and a shift away from more traditional services.
Jim Elder-Woodward, convenor of Independent Living in Scotland (ILiS), an organisation of disabled people set up to develop the independent living movement in Scotland, said it was too early to give a "definitive" response.
But he said he was "hopeful" the movement would welcome the proposals, such as making self-directed support "the default position within social care provision".
And he said there was a "great need" to make the principles and practices of independent living - and not just self-directed care - a fundamental part of education in social administration and social work.
ILiS will host a conference on 5 March to help it and other disabled people's organisations prepare their responses to the draft strategy.
A consultation on the strategy lasts until 7 May. For more information, visit: www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations
10 February 2010
Dame Tanni to fight for rights in the Lords
Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson has spoken of her desire to join the fight for improved rights for disabled people when she becomes one of four new crossbench peers in the House of Lords this spring.
Dame Tanni said she was "very proud" and "very excited" by the "enormous challenge" ahead of her, following the announcement of her peerage by the House of Lords Appointments Commission.
When asked which areas she will focus on in the Lords, she named three: sport, disability rights and the health service.
She said: "Something that is very important to me is getting an appropriate level of service (in the NHS)."
And she said there was still "so much to do in terms of achieving equality for disabled people".
She appeared keen to work on disability rights issues in the Lords with other disabled peers such as Baroness Campbell, Lord Low and Baroness Masham, who all come from "incredibly different backgrounds".
She added: "I think we are quite fortunate that there are a significant number of disabled people in the Lords."
She is likely to be "introduced" to the Lords in April. As a crossbench peer, she said she was looking forward to being able to form her own opinions, rather than being forced to vote on party lines.
She already looks set to position herself alongside three other disabled peers, Baroness Campbell, Baroness Masham and Baroness Wilkins, in opposing continued efforts to weaken the law on assisted suicide.
Dame Tanni made it clear that she had "huge concerns" about the campaign to legalise assisted suicide and the "emotive" portrayal of disability in the media around the issue.
She said that such campaigns "reinforce the view that being a disabled person is so bad that you might want to kill yourself".
She admits that she was not approved by the appointments commission when first interviewed in 2008, as its members felt then that she "wasn't ready" to join the Lords.
She said: "I think I was really nervous the first time and it gave me the opportunity to think if it was something I would like to do if I had the opportunity."
Following that first interview, she joined Transport for London's board and now chairs its corporate governance committee, and also became a member of the Youth Citizenship Commission.
Even before those appointments, she was never "just an athlete", and sat on both the Sports Council for Wales and UK Sport during her stellar career as a professional athlete, in which she won 12 Paralympic gold medals and broke 30 world records.
She is also a board member of UK Athletics and led its review of anti-doping policy in sport, and is vice-chair of the athletes committee of the organising committee for the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.
She studied politics at university and said she has always been fascinated by the machinery of government and parliament and "ow things work", even though she "always joked at university that I would never get involved in politics".
But before Dame Tanni takes her place in the Lords, she has to decide on her title. She said she was "very proud" of her Welsh roots but is conscious that she has not lived in Wales for many years.
She said: "I feel quite a lot of pressure on that from people who have literally stopped me in the street. There is more expectation about what I am going to be called then what I am going to do."
9 February 2010
MPs raise concerns over decisions on disability benefits
The government should investigate allegations of poor treatment by the company that carries out medical assessments of disabled people who apply for disability benefits, according to a committee of MPs.
A new work and pensions committee report says the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) should also investigate complaints about the computerised assessment process used by the company, ATOS Healthcare.
The committee "received many complaints about the medical assessment process", along with "widespread concerns" that those making benefits decisions in the DWP "appear to give excessive weight" to the medical assessments over other evidence provided by claimants.
The report, Decision-Making and Appeals in the Benefits System, calls on the government to set up a welfare commission to examine how to make a "fair but simpler" benefits system.
Citizens Advice told the committee that decisions become "increasingly complex" for disability benefits such as incapacity benefit (IB), employment and support allowance (ESA) and disability living allowance (DLA).
And Dr Mark Baker, head of social research and policy at RNID, told the committee that many people found the 58-page DLA claim form "utterly mystifying".
The report says that the quality of decision-making on claims for DLA and attendance allowance is "a cause for concern" because of this complexity.
It also raises concerns about cuts in welfare rights advice in some parts of the country.
Campaigners also told the committee of their concerns about the work capability assessment (WCA), the test for those claiming ESA, the new out-of-work disability benefit. The report calls on DWP to say when it will publish its internal review of the assessment.
And it says DWP should ensure terminally-ill ESA claimants are no longer forced to undertake work-focused interviews.
It concludes that an "increased focus on the quality of decision-making" to match the DWP's "successful focus on fraud" could have a "very significant effect" in reducing the cost of benefits appeals.
A DWP spokesman said it would give its full response to the report "in due course", but added: "We're pleased that the committee has recognised that every day the vast, vast majority of our claimants are getting the right benefits on time.
"But we know there is more to do and we are making strides to simplify the benefits system."
And he said the government would publish its review of the WCA once it had considered its recommendations.
9 February 2010
Handbook is guide to 'unique' relationship with PAs
A new guide provides disabled people with everything they need to deal with the "unique" challenges they face as employers of personal assistants (PAs).
The Handbook for Disabled Employers and their Personal Assistants is published by Being the Boss, a company set up by Anne Pridmore, who has campaigned for nearly 20 years on independent living and personalisation.
The guide is based on her 19 years' experience of employing people in her own home and includes a computer disc with templates for all the forms a disabled employer of PAs might need, such as time sheets, holiday rotas or wages forms.
It also includes advice on issues such as how to interview potential PAs, setting employment terms and conditions, and disciplinary and grievance procedures.
The handbook's publication has been supported by the social entrepreneurship charity UnLtd, the learning difficulties charity Choice Support and Nottinghamshire County Council.
Pridmore said: "It includes anything any employer needs to employ someone, but with a particular slant on disabled employers who employ their own PAs."
She said the relationship between disabled people and the PAs they employ to work in their own homes is "unique".
A lot of disabled people are "frightened" by the thought of starting a disciplinary procedure against a PA "when in the next breath you might need to ask them to do some personal care for you", she added.
The guide also discusses the importance of regular supervision of staff, so issues can be tackled before they escalate, with Pridmore keen to persuade more local authorities to fund such supervision, so they do not "set disabled people up to fail" when employing their own PAs.
Standard print and easy-read copies of the guide are available from www.beingtheboss.co.uk at £10 each.
8 February 2010
News stories from the week-ending 27th November 2009
Minister attacks care reform 'scaremongers'
Health secretary Andy Burnham has hit out at "scaremongering" campaigns that have attacked the government's plans to abolish key disability benefits.
Burnham made clear that the government would scrap both attendance allowance (AA) and disability living allowance (DLA) for all those over 65 as part of its plans to reform the social care funding system.
The government's care and support green paper in July suggested that the money saved would be used to fund means-tested council care services.
But Burnham - giving evidence to the Commons health committee as part of its inquiry into the future of social care - pledged again that no-one receiving DLA or AA at the time of reform "would receive any less cash support, nor would they lose any control" over how they spent that money.
He said that some "very vulnerable people" had been "frightened" by "scaremongering" campaigns and that a Conservative campaign against scrapping AA and DLA had "misrepresented" government plans.
Burnham again ruled out scrapping DLA for those under the age of 65.
He said he wanted to publish a white paper on social care funding before this year's general election, and "create unstoppable momentum" for legislation after the election.
He also dismissed criticism of the government's personal care at home bill, which would offer free personal care at home to disabled people with the highest needs.
Campaigners have warned it could lead to a squeeze on services for those with lower needs.
But Burnham said the bill was "building the vision" laid out in the green paper, and would help "the most vulnerable people, who at the moment face a lottery".
And he again squashed hopes that the government would opt for funding free personal care for all disabled people from taxation.
He said: "I think that the principle that the individual should make a contribution is the right one and it should not be just funded through general taxation."
His evidence came as the Alzheimer's Society called for parties' election manifestos to address "serious failings in dementia care", and include pledges not to scrap AA.
Its research found "overwhelming opposition" to scrapping AA and using the money to pay for care services.
A survey of nearly 1,500 carers and people with dementia also found less than a quarter were having all their care needs met.
A separate survey of 150 MPs found four in five believed a long-term solution to funding social care should be a high priority for their party.
7 January 2010
Government set to act on scooter safety
The government is set to attempt to improve mobility scooter safety, after new concerns were raised in parliament.
Mobility campaigners have backed calls for action, with estimates suggesting as many as 330,000 scooters are now in use.
Labour MP Jeff Ennis told the Commons how a constituent's two-year-old daughter was injured after being dragged underneath a scooter.
Ennis said he was concerned that there was no compulsory training for scooter-users, and praised Norfolk police, which has introduced short, voluntary training courses for scooter-users in Great Yarmouth.
He called for a new criminal offence of "riding a mobility scooter in a dangerous way", and said: "The crux of the problem is how we can ensure that mobility scooter users are proficient at riding their machines and are safe for themselves and other road-users."
Another Labour MP, Hugh Bayley, said one of his constituents was seriously injured after being hit by a scooter in 2008 but received no compensation as the driver had no insurance.
Transport minister Sadiq Khan suggested that the government would soon launch a consultation on possible new legislation.
He told MPs it would be important "to balance the rights of people with disabilities with the rights of other people to feel safe", but stressed that injuries were "rare and mostly minor" and scooters were "reasonably safe" when compared with other transport.
Hospital data suggests fewer than 40 people a year are severely injured by scooters, with around 95 per cent of injuries to the drivers.
The debate came as the Commons transport committee launched an inquiry into mobility scooters.
Helen Smith, director of policy and campaigns for the mobility charity Mobilise, which will submit evidence to the inquiry, said they had been urging the government to examine the insurance issue.
She said: "I think it's overdue. The numbers of scooters has grown enormously and we have phone calls from people saying, 'I can't drive anymore because of my eyesight, and I have just bought myself a scooter.'
"There's nothing to stop people driving in an inappropriate way. Nobody really has insurance.
"There have been accidents, there have been injuries and I am sure there have been a lot more that have not been reported."
But she added: "We wouldn't want people's mobility being restricted through unnecessary legislation."
And she said action could possibly be taken to ensure safer design of scooters, many of which are "just hard lumps of metal".
7 January 2010
China faces embassy protest over execution
China is facing further protests over its execution of a British man with bipolar disorder.
Protesters appalled at the execution of Akmal Shaikh on 29 December are due to hold a peaceful demonstration outside the Chinese embassy in London on Sunday (10 January).
Members of Shaikh's family have also written to foreign secretary David Miliband, demanding an inquest into his death.
His brother Akbar said in the letter: "My family is suffering incredible grief and torment over the many unanswered questions surrounding Akmal's death.
"We have begged the Chinese for answers ...but none have been forthcoming."
He said an inquest would help answer some of the family's questions so that the "terrible mysteries surrounding my brother's apparent death, 7,000 miles from his family and all alone, can be resolved for us".
Much of the anger of relatives and campaigners has been directed at the Chinese authorities' refusal to carry out an assessment of Shaikh's mental health, despite overwhelming evidence that he had bipolar disorder.
Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve, which supports prisoners facing the death penalty and campaigned on Shaikh's behalf, said: "An inquest would give this grieving family a crucial insight into Akmal's final hours, his mental state and the extent to which he suffered before he died.
"Only then can they begin to recover from the trauma of Akmal's lonely and senseless death."
Shaikh, who was originally from Kentish Town, north London, was arrested in 2007 at an airport in northwest China and found to be carrying four kilogrammes of heroin in a suitcase.
Reprieve says he was taken advantage of by drug smugglers who knew about his mental health condition and befriended him after he moved to Poland.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman confirmed that they had received Akbar Shaikh's letter, and were considering the request for an inquest.
7 January 2010
Police force reviews hate crime policy after family's five-year ordeal
A Welsh police force is reviewing how it deals with disability hate crime, after a disabled woman complained of a five-year campaign of harassment at the hands of local thugs.
Irene Miles, a wheelchair-user from Newport, Gwent, revealed in a BBC Wales documentary how she and her daughter had called police 60 times in five years.
Bricks were thrown at her adapted car, creosote was poured over it, and paint was thrown over their back yard.
None of these incidents was treated as a disability hate crime.
The documentary showed CCTV footage of the latest incident, on 2 November last year, in which a hooded man smashed every window of her car.
Miles said she was convinced she was targeted because she was disabled, and compared her case with that of Fiona Pilkington, who was driven to kill herself and her disabled daughter after years of disablist harassment by local thugs.
Another disabled person interviewed for the documentary was Peter Wood, who spent weeks in hospital after an arson attack on his home in Barry, south Wales.
He became reclusive after years of abuse and name-calling by local thugs. After leaving hospital he moved to Devon to escape the harassment.
The programme was presented by Simon Green, a wheelchair-user from Bridgend, who used undercover filming to show the disablist name-calling and threats he receives on nights out.
Chief superintendent Paul Symes, head of neighbourhood policing for Gwent police, said: "We are currently reviewing the way we have dealt with the Miles family and their neighbours over a considerable period of time, to see if any lessons can be learnt.
"We have also redesigned our daily management meeting to give hate crime greater scrutiny."
A force spokesman added: "Our hate crime policy is being reviewed and any lessons from the review of the handling of this case will be built in."
He said the damage to the car on 2 November was not immediately viewed as a hate crime, but was reclassified as a disability hate crime several days later after contact from Victim Support.
No-one from South Wales police was available to comment on the arson attack in Barry.
6 January 2010
Government launches 'urgent review' of Pathways to Work
The government has admitted that its Pathways to Work programme to help disabled people into work is "less effective" than it first thought, and has launched an urgent review.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said the programme - first piloted in 2003 - had not helped as many disabled people into work as it had hoped.
An independent study into Pathways to Work pilots had found that disabled people in Pathways areas were about 25 per cent more likely to be in work after 18 months than those in non-Pathways areas.
But a report published last October found that when Pathways - which can offer work-focused interviews, help applying for jobs and managing a health condition, and financial assistance - was rolled out to other Jobcentre Plus areas it had no effect on employment rates, compared with non-Pathways areas.
Now the government has launched an "evidence-gathering review" of the back-to-work support provided by Pathways to people on incapacity benefit and the new employment and support allowance.
It aims to publish proposals on the future of Pathways this spring, but says it wants to move to a "simpler, stronger, more personalised model of support", with a focus on "rights and responsibilities" and value for money.
Adrian Whyatt, chair of the user group Neurodiversity International, said the government had awarded Pathways contracts to large organisations which failed to involve or understand disabled people, while disabled people's organisations were too small to bid for contracts.
The contracts failed to ensure providers set up boards of disabled people to control the programmes, so there was a "lack of expertise" at "every stage of the process", he added.
A DWP spokesman said Pathways had helped more than 173,000 people into work, and helped to "significantly" narrow the gap between the overall employment rate and that of disabled people.
But he said more needed to be done, which was why the government was reviewing Pathways "to explore how we can further support those who can work fulfil that goal".
He said the government believed that "organisations of all sizes, small and large, from the public, private and voluntary sectors, have an important role to play in helping people back to work".
He added: "We work continuously with providers to help them find ways to improve and enhance the service they provide to this customer group, actively encouraging prime contractors to engage with niche providers who have the specialist knowledge necessary."
6 January 2010
Seminars will help disabled people become NHS leaders
Disabled people who would like to take up senior roles within their local NHS are being urged to sign up for a seminar to help them make successful applications.
The seminars in Manchester and London are being run by the disability charity RADAR and the Appointments Commission, the independent body that helps government departments and NHS trusts appoint their board members.
Those who attend will be told how to apply for roles as non-executive directors in primary care trusts, ambulance service trusts, acute or foundation NHS trusts, or strategic health authorities, and what their duties would involve if successful.
Government figures show that only one in 20 appointees to the boards of the UK's 1,200 public bodies is disabled or has a long-term health condition.
The government aims to increase this to nearly one in seven new appointments (14 per cent) by March 2011.
Those who attend the free seminars will meet recruitment consultants and disabled people who have secured senior NHS positions, as well as the chief executives of RADAR and the Appointments Commission.
There are up to 20 places available at each seminar, all for people living with ill-health, injury or disability.
Mark Shrimpton, RADAR's joint deputy chief executive, said: "These free of charge events are fantastic opportunities for people affected by ill health, injury or disability to prime themselves to make successful applications to help run their local NHS services in a paid capacity.
"Delegates will get a whole day's access to the CEOs of both RADAR and the Appointments Commission, as well as other key movers and shakers."
The Appointments Commission will also provide support in pursuing an appointment after the event for delegates with the right skills and experience.
The all-day seminars take place in London on 11 February and in Manchester on 1 March.
For more information, contact Nisha Patel at nisha.patel@radar.org.ukThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or tel: 020 7503 6177.
6 January 2010
Disabled duo set to fight again in court for direct payments
Two disabled people will challenge the government in court this month over its refusal to allow them to use direct payments to manage their own long-term healthcare.
They will argue that the decision discriminates against them and breaches their human rights.
The government is fighting the case despite passing new legislation in November that will allow the NHS to use direct payments. It is now preparing to pilot their use in some primary care trusts (PCTs).
Valerie Garnham, who has a progressive neuromuscular condition, was one of the first residents of Islington in London to receive direct payments for care services, but a serious illness seven years ago meant she needed a permanent tracheotomy and ventilator.
She became eligible for NHS continuing care and began receiving direct payments for her health needs from Islington PCT, paid through her council.
But two years ago, the PCT told her she would have to receive her healthcare through an agency, because of new government guidance.
Garnham lost a court battle to challenge this decision last year, but won an interim injunction forcing the PCT to allow her to continue receiving direct payments until her appeal was over.
Now lawyers for her and Steven Harrison, from Yorkshire - who is also fighting for the right to healthcare direct payments - will argue their case at the court of appeal.
They will say the Department of Health (DH) has the power to allow direct payments to be paid to service-users, and by denying them to those receiving healthcare services, it is discriminating against disabled people and breaching their right to a private and family life, under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Garnham said it could cost three times as much to provide agency nurses than her current arrangement, her quality of life would suffer, and she would feel less secure than she does with the trusted staff she has helped train herself.
She said: "It would remove my control. It would be impossible to match the flexibility that we have at the moment."
Her solicitor, Frances Lipman, from the Disability Law Service, said: "This is a very important case.
"What is the difference between someone on NHS and someone on social care?
"It goes to the heart of disabled people's lives and how they manage their care."
The DH said it could not comment because of the pending appeal.
5 January 2010
Thalidomide survivors to win government apology after 50 years
Survivors of the drug Thalidomide have hailed a new £20 million package of support, and the promise of a long-awaited government apology.
The prime minister is expected to deliver a "statement of regret" in the Commons early in the new year.
Guy Tweedy, a leading campaigner, said the announcement was "wonderful news".
Tweedy, deputy chair of the Thalidomide Trust's national advisory council (NAC), an elected committee representing those with impairments caused by Thalidomide, said an apology would be just as important as the new funding.
He said: "It is just as important to the parents as it is to the Thalidomiders themselves.
"For a lot of people it has been a trauma for 50 years. They have battled against social services, the drug companies and the government.
"This drug could have been avoided. It was avoided in America. It was a (UK) government agency that said it was a great drug and should be used.
"This will be a recognition that mistakes were made and they recognise it and they will say sorry. It will make a difference to a lot of people."
Tweedy is one of about 460 people in the UK born with impairments caused by their mothers taking Thalidomide while pregnant in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
He said he regretted that 18 others who have died since he began campaigning in 2002 would not hear the apology.
The funding will provide more personalised support for those with Thalidomide impairments, and will be paid over three years from April 2010.
Tweedy said it would fund their "unmet needs", such as paying for adaptations to homes and buying adapted cars and electric wheelchairs.
Many survivors have found it increasingly difficult to survive on the compensation they receive from the company that marketed the drug in the UK, because of equipment costs and deteriorating health.
The announcement followed lengthy discussions between the Department of Health (DH), the Thalidomide Trust - which administers the compensation - and the NAC.
The DH will hand the funding to the trust, which will distribute money to Thalidomide survivors, all now aged between 47 and 50, to give them "more control over their long-term health needs".
The DH said the scheme would be evaluated to "explore how the health needs of Thalidomiders can be best met in the longer term" and it would examine how this approach of working through an expert national body might be used with other small groups of people with "specialised needs".
29 December 2009
Outrage after China executes disabled Briton
Campaigners and politicians have reacted with horror and outrage after China refused pleas for clemency and executed a British man with bipolar disorder.
Despite repeated appeals from the prime minister, Gordon Brown, and the foreign secretary, David Miliband, Akmal Shaikh was executed on the morning of 29 December in Urumqi, north-west China.
Much of the anger has been directed at the Chinese authorities' refusal to carry out an assessment of Shaikh's mental health, despite overwhelming evidence that he had bipolar disorder.
The prime minister, Gordon Brown, condemned the execution and said he was "appalled and disappointed" that the government's "persistent requests for clemency" had not been granted.
He added: "I am particularly concerned that no mental health assessment was undertaken."
Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis described the failure to carry out an assessment as "reprehensible" and added: "There is absolutely no doubt that this man had mental health problems.
"The Chinese had all of this information and they made a point not to undergo this medical assessment and that cannot be right in a civilised world."
Two of Shaikh's cousins had flown to China to appeal for clemency and visited him in the secure hospital where he was being kept.
Shaikh's family also wrote to the Chinese president, and relatives joined a peaceful vigil outside the Chinese embassy in London in the hours before the execution.
Nearly 6,500 people joined a Facebook group calling on China to halt the execution, the first of a European in China for more than 50 years.
The UK charity Reprieve, which supports prisoners facing the death penalty and campaigned on Shaikh's behalf, said it had given the Chinese authorities six new witness statements that clearly showed his mental health condition.
Reprieve said it was "appalled" that no mercy had been shown to a man who clearly had a mental health condition and "disgusted" that China had refused to allow a proper medical evaluation.
Shaikh, who was married with five children and was originally from Kentish Town, north London, was arrested in 2007 at an airport in northwest China and found to be carrying four kilogrammes of heroin in a suitcase.
Reprieve says he was taken advantage of by drug smugglers who knew about his mental health condition and befriended him after he moved to Poland.
29 December 2009
News stories from the week-ending 27th November 2009
Sports bodies launch last hunt for athletes with Paralympic X factor
Three major UK sports bodies have launched one final search for disabled potential medal-winners, with just 1,000 days to go until the start of the London 2012 Paralympics.
Talent2012: Paralympic Potential is a nationwide talent drive being run by ParalympicsGB, UK Sport and The English Institute of Sport.
Their message, as they launched the scheme on 3 December - the International Day of Disabled People - was that there was still time for athletes currently outside the elite training programmes to win medals in 2012.
They said such a campaign - less than three years from the start of the Games - was "unprecedented".
And they said that, although it can take athletes up to eight years to reach an Olympics, research has shown that potential participants for a Paralympic Games can reach elite level far quicker.
At the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing, a third of British medallists had been part of an elite sporting programme for less than two years, with 15 of the 42 British gold medals won by first-time Paralympians.
Phil Lane, ParalympicsGB's chief executive, said: "Whilst we have come second in the medal table at the past four Games, there are many events that we simply haven't been able to field an athlete in.
"With the competition getting tougher all the time it is vital that we have explored all avenues to recruit new athletes."
Dave Smith, who only began training 12 months ago after switching from the GB bobsleigh team, has already become a world champion in adaptive rowing.
He joined a ParalympicsGB initiative on the advice of a coach and was spotted by rowing coaches.
He now hopes to compete for Britain in London in 2012, and said: "I think my story demonstrates that with the right coaching and determination anything is possible.
"I hope other athletes in a similar position to me will grab their 2012 opportunity."
The campaign is open to athletes aged between 15 and 35. To register your interest, visit www.uksport.gov.uk/talent before 11 January 2010.
3 December 2009
Jobs measure in bill could help stop discrimination by employers
A new measure in the equality bill should provide greater protection from discrimination for disabled people looking for jobs.
The government amendment to the bill aims to tackle the problem of employers who use questionnaires that include health and disability-related questions to discriminate against job applicants with hidden impairments.
It was added to the bill - which will streamline existing equality laws and introduce new measures around disability discrimination - as it completed its progress through the Commons.
Vera Baird, the solicitor general, told the Commons that MPs had heard "compelling evidence" from disability organisations that many disabled people were having job applications rejected once employers became aware of their impairments.
Pre-employment inquiries can also deter some disabled people from applying for jobs, she said.
RADAR told MPs at an earlier stage of the bill's progress that restricting the use of pre-employment inquiries was "probably the single biggest difference and improvement that could be made through the equality bill in relation to the employment of disabled people".
Baird said the new amendment would deter employers from asking health and disability-related questions and then using the information "for discriminatory purposes".
There are some situations where employers will be able to ask such questions before they short-list a candidate after a job interview, such as to allow them to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process.
But there have been concerns over the way the amendment has been phrased, with some campaigners apparently saying it is too complicated.
The Conservative MP John Penrose told the Commons that both Rethink and the Terrence Higgins Trust had expressed concerns, although he said parliament was "making steady progress in the right direction".
The government also introduced two other amendments to the bill that aim to tighten up protection from disability discrimination.
One amendment aims to make it clear that disabled people can legally be treated more favourably in order to address the barriers they face.
Another aims to clarify how disabled people are protected from being discriminated against because of issues arising from their impairment.
It is so far unclear how disabled people's organisations will react to these two amendments.
3 December 2009
Independent living strategy is probably on course, say experts
The government's five-year independent living strategy is probably "on course", according to the first report of a committee set up to scrutinise its progress.
The independent living scrutiny group (ILSG), chaired by Baroness (Jane) Campbell and only set up in June, concluded that it was too early to draw "meaningful conclusions" about progress as they were still awaiting much of the relevant data.
But she said that "overall...we are satisfied that, at this early stage, progress on the ILS can be considered to be on course".
And she pointed to "signs of positive developments" since the cross-government strategy was launched in March 2008.
These include employment rates for disabled people rising from 47.8 per cent in 2007 to 48.5 per cent in 2009.
The report also welcomes participation rates in informal volunteering rising from 33 per cent in 2007/08 to 36 per cent in 2008/09, and the percentage of buses with low floor wheelchair access increasing regularly since 2001/02.
But Baroness Campbell says in the report that the group - whose members include some of the country's leading disabled experts on independent living - were "concerned" that 23 per cent of disabled people say they do not frequently have choice and control over their lives.
She said the committee would be "looking for a significant reduction in this figure in the coming years".
3 December 2009
Goal of equality by 2025 is closer, says government
The minister for disabled people has said the government is "moving closer" to its target of achieving equality for disabled people by 2025.
The comment from Jonathan Shaw MP came as the Office for Disability Issues (ODI) published its annual report on the government's progress towards its goal of equality by 2025.
The report says the government has made "significant progress" during 2009 and now has a "clear map for the road ahead".
In Roadmap 2025, published alongside the annual report, the ODI lays out a series of measures taken by the government since its Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People report in 2005 set out the vision of equality by 2025.
The Roadmap says the employment rate of disabled people increased from 44.5 per cent in 2005 to 48.4 per cent in 2008.
It also points to the government's independent living strategy, co-produced with disabled people, and its transforming adult social care strategy, which aims to give people more choice and control over services.
And it says it is investing £370 million in improving access to train stations between 2006 and 2015.
The Roadmap also points to the Aiming High for Disabled Children strategy, which aims to improve services for disabled children and their families.
The Roadmap also lays out the latest steps the government is taking to achieve equality, including spending £370 million to support short breaks for families with disabled children; its new equality bill; its hate crime action plan, published in September; and its pledge to double the access to work budget by 2013.
It also says that hosting a successful Olympic and Paralympic Games in London in 2012 will promote inclusion, positive attitudes and the active participation of disabled people.
The Roadmap also highlights the reform of the blue badge parking system for disabled motorists.
But, more controversially, it says that beginning the transfer of disabled people on incapacity benefit to the new employment and support allowance (ESA) from next year - with "increased work-related support" - will also help achieve equality.
Campaigners have repeatedly warned that only a small proportion of those applying for ESA - currently only available to new claimants - are "passing" the strict new test.
They have raised concerns that too many disabled people are not accessing ESA and are ending up on jobseeker's allowance, where they do not get tailored support and receive a lower level of benefit.
3 December 2009
CQC finds improvements in care, but concerns remain
The care regulator has welcomed improvements in the quality of adult social care, but has raised a number of concerns about areas such as personalisation and eligibility for services.
In its first report on adult social care since its launch in April as the regulator for adult social care and health services in England, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found 140 of 148 councils (95 per cent) were performing well or excellently in commissioning adult social care.
The report says 27 councils have improved since last year, while 11 have deteriorated.
And for the sixth year running, no councils have been assessed as performing poorly overall.
But the number of councils performing excellently at increasing choice and control for adults using social care fell to 26 (from 32 in 2008), with nearly a quarter only performing adequately.
Although the CQC said this may partly be because its assessment in this area had "sharpened up", it highlighted this as a "priority" for improvement.
The CQC also said that nearly two in five councils needed improvement to increase the number of adults using self-directed support and individual budgets.
And about a third of councils are only performing adequately in maintaining the dignity and respect of service-users, about the same level as last year.
Three councils restrict eligibility for care-managed services to those with "critical" needs, while 103 set their threshold at "substantial" needs, 39 at moderate and three low. Three have raised their criteria and three have lowered them since 2008.
The CQC said it was "encouraged" that eligibility thresholds remained "largely unchanged" since last year, despite the recession, but it said it was still "concerned" that some councils could have to raise eligibility criteria further as public spending is squeezed in future years.
The quality of care homes and domiciliary services has also improved - over the year, the proportion of services rated as good or excellent increased from just over two-thirds (69 per cent) to just over three-quarters (77 per cent).
The CQC highlighted eight councils where improvements in adult social care were a priority, with a further 16 selected for in-depth inspections.
Cynthia Bower, the CQC's chief executive, welcomed the "steady improvements" but said she was concerned that many care homes and agencies "have more to do to deliver the quality of care expected of them".
She added: "There are also serious issues for councils to address in areas such as giving people more control over their care, treating people with dignity, and ensuring commissioning is as effective as possible."
3 December 2009
Equality watchdog to launch inquiry into violence and harassment
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has announced a major inquiry that aims to discover the true extent of the harassment and violence experienced by disabled people in England and Wales.
The commission announced in April that it would review how public bodies - such as local authorities and social landlords - were meeting their duties under the Disability Discrimination Act to take action to address violence and hostility targeted at disabled people.
But it has become so concerned by evidence it has heard since then of incidents of violence and harassment across the country that it has decided to hold a formal inquiry.
After the inquiry ends, the EHRC could decide to take legal action to force public authorities to comply with their duties.
The commission has pledged to put disabled people and their organisations at the heart of the inquiry, and there are likely to be public sessions around the country at which they can give evidence.
Neil Crowther, the EHRC's disability programme director, said: "At its heart there needs to be a very strong involvement of disabled people and public authorities in a conversation about what needs to change."
And he said there would probably be parts of the country where disabled people were at greater risk of harassment and violence than others.
Disabled anti-hate crime campaigners have welcomed the inquiry.
Anne Novis, who leads on hate crime issues for the United Kingdom's Disabled People's Council, said it was long overdue, and hoped the EHRC would work closely with disabled people and their organisations, which have been raising concerns around hate crime for "many years".
And Stephen Brookes, coordinator of the National Disability Hate Crime Network, said the inquiry was a "good first step" in tackling the problem.
The inquiry's results are likely to feed into a major EHRC report, due in 2011, in which it will analyse the UK government's progress on implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The announcement follows a string of high-profile cases of targeted violence and harassment against disabled people, including the death of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter Francecca following a sustained hate campaign by a local gang.
Mike Smith, the EHRC's new disabled commissioner, said: "There have been many well-documented cases where targeted hostility, bullying and antisocial behaviour has escalated into more serious violence, murder or the death of disabled people."
He said the Pilkington tragedy showed the importance of early intervention and preventative action, and warned that disabled people experiencing harassment can become "conditioned to hostile treatment", are told to ignore it, or go to "enormous lengths" to avoid putting themselves at risk.
Draft terms of reference are expected early in the new year, with the inquiry likely to begin in early February and report within a year.
3 December 2009
Business award provides extras reward for Pickup
An amputee whose company provides extras to the film and television industry has won an annual award for disabled entrepreneurs - and a cheque for £50,000.
John Pickup began Amputees in Action in 2004, and has supplied amputee extras - often for action scenes - to Hollywood movies such as Atonement and 28 Weeks Later, as well as to television productions and "casualty simulations".
Pickup has now won the 2009 Stelios Award for Disabled Entrepreneurs, an award programme run by Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD) in partnership with easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou.
Pickup said the prize would help his company invest in a project to develop a recognised qualification system that would allow amputees to perform film stunts as well as working as extras.
He said: "I believe that a positive approach is the way to overcome the fear, prejudice and misconception that often stand in the way of disabled people."
Sir Stelios, who funds the award and will arrange business mentoring for Pickup and two runners-up, said it was vital to remove the barriers disabled people face in business.
But he added: "Self-employment is a more viable option for many disabled people as it offers flexibility and helps bypass much of the prejudice that unfortunately still exists amongst employers."
Sophie Down, LCD's corporate partnerships officer, said: "Our partnership with Sir Stelios is helping the charity highlight the barriers disabled people face in the workplace and recognise the outstanding achievement of disabled entrepreneurs."
2 December 2009
Civil Service seeks disabled students for internship scheme
The Civil Service is seeking talented disabled students for a summer internship scheme that will provide new skills and work experience at the heart of government.
Although the 2010 Fast Stream summer placement scheme does not offer permanent jobs, it is seen as a stepping stone for those seeking a career in the Civil Service.
Successful interns will work in a government department on tasks such as research, helping to prepare policy documents, shadowing senior civil servants, and attending meetings with senior advisors.
Placements last up to nine weeks, and usually start in late June, with interns given a training allowance of £350 per week if based in London or £300 if outside London.
The skills and experience gained could lead to a career in the Civil Service and possible entry to the Fast Stream graduate programme, aimed at those with the potential to become senior civil servants.
The disability charity Scope is helping the Cabinet Office on the scheme, helping to recruit disabled people, providing support for disabled interns, and offering advice on reasonable adjustments and disability equality training for line managers.
Rhonda Calder, head of Fast Stream marketing and outreach diversity at the Cabinet Office, said: "Organisations that seek to include talent from as wide a range of people as possible ultimately benefit in the long term.
"This scheme will help these students make their first step on the career ladder and gain the skills and experience that could potentially lead to a career in the Civil Service."
Applicants must be in the final or penultimate year of their degree, considered disabled under the Disability Discrimination Act, and expect to gain at least a 2:2 degree.
The closing date for applications is 4 January 2010. For further information, visit: www.civilservice.gov.uk/summerdiversity
2 December 2009
Home secretary attacked by MPs over McKinnon extradition
MPs and campaigners have attacked the home secretary's latest refusal to halt the extradition of disabled computer hacker Gary McKinnon to the United States.
Alan Johnson MP had been considering new evidence relating to McKinnon's mental health, which suggested that he was highly likely to try to kill himself if extradited.
McKinnon's lawyers have now been given until 10 December to lodge papers seeking a judicial review of Johnson's decision. If that fails, they could also appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
McKinnon, from north London, who has Asperger's syndrome, faces a trial for allegedly hacking into US defense department computer systems, and a possible prison sentence of 60 years if convicted.
During an emergency debate in the Commons, McKinnon's MP, David Burrowes, accused Johnson and the government of being "spineless" and said the new medical evidence showed that "suicide is now a real probability and will be an almost certain inevitability should he experience extradition".
He said: "Putting it more bluntly, how ill and vulnerable does Gary McKinnon need to be not to be extradited to the United States?"
A string of other MPs from across the political spectrum attacked the home secretary's failure to halt the extradition.
But Johnson told MPs he had "looked at every single word submitted by Gary McKinnon's lawyers on the evidence of his medical condition" and his decision was that extraditing McKinnon would not breach his rights under the European Convention of Human Rights.
He added: "There are legitimate concerns about Mr McKinnon's health, and the United States authorities have provided assurances, which were before the high court in July, that his needs will be met."
And he said it was "clear" there was "no real risk" that McKinnon would serve any of his sentence in a "supermax" prison, if convicted.
He added: "Should Mr McKinnon be extradited, charged and convicted in the US and seek repatriation to the UK to serve his sentence in this country, the government will progress his application at the very earliest opportunity."
The Royal Association for Disability Rights (RADAR) condemned the home secretary's decision and said many disabled people had expressed their "outrage" at a decision that "flies in the face of justice and human rights".
The National Autistic Society, which has provided emergency care for McKinnon - detailed in the new evidence - said it was "bitterly disappointed" by the home secretary's decision.
2 December 2009
HIV stigma 'still a significant challenge'
More than a fifth of people living with HIV in the UK have been verbally assaulted, threatened or harassed in the last year because of their HIV status, according to a new report.
And more than ten per cent of those questioned in a survey for the report said they had been physically harassed because of their HIV status.
The report, Give Stigma the Index Finger!, is based on research developed by people living with HIV and was funded by the M.A.C AIDS Fund, and is part of an international initiative, The People Living with HIV Stigma Index.
The new research found that about one in six of the 867 people questioned had been denied health services because of their HIV status at least once in the previous year.
And about the same number said they were convinced their medical records were not being kept confidential.
But the research also found that people living with HIV were leading efforts to overcome stigma.
Nearly half those questioned had personally confronted, challenged or educated people who were stigmatizing them, while 84 per cent had supported other people living with HIV.
The report concludes that stigma remains a "significant challenge" in the UK, and affects access to health, legal, care and support services and the self-esteem and quality of life of people living with HIV.
Health secretary Andy Burnham welcomed the report and said the government would "carefully consider" its findings.
He said the government had worked with voluntary organisations and funded schemes to tackle stigma as part of its national strategy for sexual health and HIV.
He said: "Effective treatments have transformed the lives of people with HIV and today many more people with HIV can plan for their future with more certainty.
"But even in the UK, individuals and families affected by HIV can experience stigma and discrimination."
The People Living with HIV Stigma Index - which had initial start-up funding from the UK's Department for International Development - is part of a global initiative between the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the UN's HIV/AIDS programme and two international networks of people living with HIV, the Global Network of People living with HIV/AIDS and the International Community of Women with HIV/AIDS.
1 December 2009
DPOs recognised in awards ceremony
Two disabled activists have won prestigious awards that recognise their work with pioneering disabled people's organisations.
Mike Adams, chief executive of Essex Coalition of Disabled People (ECDP), said he was "honoured" to win RADAR's person of the year award.
Adams has helped create a "beacon" user-led organisation that empowers disabled people to influence local services.
ECDP also provides high quality services to disabled people across Essex, and increasingly influences policy, both locally and nationally.
Since he took the post in 2007, Adams has overseen an increase in ECDP's funding by 53 per cent, staffing by over 25 per cent and membership from 80 to nearly 1,500.
He said: "Our challenge is to make it the business of disabled people and disabled people's organisations everywhere to lead the change required to enhance the everyday lives of disabled people in Essex and beyond."
RADAR's lifetime achievement award was won by Julie Jaye Charles, who has built up Equalities National Council (ENC), a national movement for black and minority ethnic (BME) disabled people and carers, since founding it in 2000.
Charles has helped develop advocacy, promote the take-up of direct payments in BME communities and helped tackle race discrimination in mental health services.
She said she was "still in shock" and "very humbled" by the award and hoped it would push the needs of BME disabled people higher up the agenda.
She said: "My pride comes from the amount of service-users that actually want to be part of ENC, who continue to knock on our door, just to be part of something that recognises their needs."
The disabled young person of the year award was won by Riam Dean, who triumphed in a high-profile discrimination case after taking on the might of the American clothing giant Abercrombie & Fitch.
Other winners at the annual People of the Year Awards included the Association of Disabled Professionals, which won the careers award for its work in providing advice, peer support and networking opportunities for disabled people in professional and managerial positions.
And the efforts of a group of people with learning difficulties to encourage other disabled people to register to vote for the first time was recognised with RADAR's access award.
Members of Promote the Vote, run by Cambridgeshire-based Speaking Up, have led 50 workshops explaining to other people with learning difficulties why they should vote, and have set up an accessible website to spread the message.
1 December 2009
Call for action on adult communication
A disability charity has called on the government to carry out a national audit to find out how many disabled adults in the UK have speech, language and communication needs (SLCN).
Scope also wants the National Audit Office to discover what services are available, and how many adults are not receiving the support they need.
The recommendations are included in the final report from Scope's No Voice, No Choice campaign, which says that everyone who can benefit from augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) - such as high-tech communication aids, sign systems and symbols - should receive the equipment and support they need to communicate.
The charity says "radical" improvements are needed to services providing communication-related equipment and support, and has called for a network of regional centres of AAC expertise to support local services.
The report criticises the "fragmented approach" to provision of AAC services and the "lack of specialist expertise", and calls for a guarantee of lifelong provision and ongoing support for those who use AAC, as well as improvements to the AAC workforce.
Labour MP Roger Berry has tabled a Commons early day motion backing calls for an audit.
In 2007, Scope estimated that as many as 600,000 people in the UK could benefit from AAC, but it believes the real level of need could be much higher.
The campaign has secured a government commitment to improving services for children with communication impairments, but it wants this extended to adults.
Martin Pistorius spent 14 years unable to communicate before he met someone who introduced him to AAC.
He said: "I had no real way to communicate and even when I did make attempts to communicate, nobody understood me.
"In fact, they didn't even see it as an attempt to communicate."
He can now communicate by using an infra-red head-mouse, an alphabet board and hand signs.
Ruth Scott, Scope's director of policy and campaigns, said: "The government has made good progress on improved communication-based support for children.
"It now needs to turn its attention to tackling the woeful situation for adults with communication impairments.
"Without knowing the true picture of how many disabled adults have communication needs, little can be done to ensure they are provided with the right support."
The Department of Health was unable to comment.
1 December 2009
News stories from the week-ending 27th November 2009
Personal care bill 'will squeeze services'
Government proposals to offer free personal care at home to disabled people with the highest needs will probably lead to a squeeze on services for those with lower needs, say campaigners.
Deep concerns emerged after the government published its new personal care at home bill, which would provide free care for the estimated 280,000 disabled people in England with "critical" needs.
But £250 million of the estimated £670 million a year costs of the bill - which will also provide intensive "re-ablement" support for around 130,000 people who need home care for the first time - are intended to come from local government "efficiency savings".
But both the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services have raised doubts over whether these savings are achievable.
Caroline Ellis, joint deputy chief executive of the disability charity RADAR, said the assumption that councils would "do the right thing" and could make the necessary efficiency savings was "a joke".
She said: "They will take the money from somewhere else and the somewhere else as likely as not will be other disabled people who are not on the critical list."
She said she was already deeply concerned about the number of disabled people who were having their care packages "slashed" by councils, putting the jobs of many working age people at risk.
Neil Coyle, director of policy for Disability Alliance, the disability poverty charity, said he welcomed any bill that provides free care for disabled people.
But he said that if local government did not receive the necessary funding from central government, councils might start reassessing disabled people with critical needs as having "substantial" needs - the next level down - and so not eligible for free care.
Councils might also increase care charges, and cut services such as welfare rights advice.
Coyle said: "Our worry is that some disabled people will be significantly adversely affected by this policy when it should be extremely positive."
The bill comes, he said, after the government ruled out free personal care for all disabled people - funded by taxation - in July's care and support green paper, despite public backing for such a policy.
Meanwhile, Lord (Jack) Ashley has introduced his own health and social care (independent living) bill in the Lords.
His bill - backed by a number of disabled people's organisations, including RADAR - would provide a legal right to independent living, clear rights to independent advocacy, and enforceable entitlements to enough care and support to enable disabled people to live in dignity and contribute widely to society.
26 November 2009
Bank loses appeal over 'landmark' access ruling
A bank will have to install a lift at a city centre branch after a disabled customer won an appeal court victory in a landmark discrimination case.
The Royal Bank of Scotland will have to carry out the building work - at an estimated cost of £200,000 - in order to make its Sheffield city centre branch accessible to wheelchair-users.
The case was brought by teenager David Allen, an electric wheelchair-user, who could not access the branch because the entrance was at the top of four steps.
Allen was forced to discuss personal details about his account in the street outside the branch.
Lord Justice Wall, one of the three court of appeal judges, said there were "reasonable steps" the bank could have taken to make the branch accessible.
He added: "The bank did not take those steps, giving as its reason, not the disproportionate cost of carrying out the work, but simply the fact that it would lose the use of an interview room."
The bank had appealed against a decision by Sheffield county court in January that it had breached the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) - the first time an injunction had been granted ordering work to be carried out to make business premises accessible.
The county court had rejected the argument that Allen should use internet banking instead, ruling that it was not the same service.
Sheffield Law Centre, which helped Allen bring the case, with funding from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said the appeal court judgement stressed that services for disabled people must be as close as possible to those provided to the general public.
Allen's compensation of £6,500 was the highest awarded for a failure to make reasonable adjustments under part three of the DDA, which relates to goods and services.
Allen was awarded an extra £3,000 compensation for ongoing discrimination, as the lift will not be installed until August 2010 - the total award of £9,500 is now the largest by a court under part three of the DDA.
After the judgement, Allen said: "I'm glad the bank finally had to apologise in court and acknowledge they treated me badly."
But he added: "They just failed to understand anything about the need for privacy and dignity."
Douglas Johnson, of Sheffield Law Centre, said the judgement would "make it easier and simpler" for courts to deal with complaints of disability discrimination.
He added: "The real access issue is about people and attitudes, not ramps and steps."
23 November 2009
Lifting of ban means athletes with learning difficulties will compete at 2012
Athletes with learning difficulties will be able to compete at the London 2012 Paralympics, after a ban was finally lifted by the world governing body.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) imposed the ban after the 2000 Sydney Paralympics, when nearly all the gold medal-winning Spanish basketball team were found not to have learning difficulties (or intellectual disabilities (ID), as they are categorised by the IPC).
The ban was lifted after the IPC and the International Federation for Sport for Athletes with an Intellectual Disability (INAS-FID) agreed on a strict new testing regime.
Athletes with ID will now fight for medals in four sports at London 2012: athletics, swimming, rowing and table-tennis.
Athletes who want to compete in IPC events - including the Paralympics - will have to submit information including an intelligence test and medical evidence to INAS-FID.
Eligible athletes will then undergo "on-site testing", which will focus on "sports intelligence" and include tests relevant to that sport.
These on-site tests are not expected to be ready until mid-2010, but eligible athletes can compete until then at the discretion of individual sports federations.
ID swimmers have already competed in the IPC European championships in October in Iceland - their first big competition since Sydney. Seven British swimmers won a total of 12 medals.
One of them was Craig Rodgie, from Fife in Scotland, who won gold in the S14 100m backstroke.
He said "words can't describe" how he and other ID athletes felt when they realised they would be able to compete at London 2012.
He said: "We have been waiting so long for the inclusion. Just getting the opportunity to be at one of the biggest events in the world, it's just unbelievable."
Although he is keen to focus on "one step at a time", with his next objective next year's world championships in Eindhoven, he said London 2012 was "where I want to be".
Tim Reddish, chairman of ParalympicsGB, said: "We have lobbied hard for the re-inclusion of athletes with a learning disability, subject to a robust classification system, and are delighted that IPC and INAS-FID have got us to that point.
"The Paralympic Games represent the pinnacle of high performance sport, so any athletes with a learning disability will have to meet the same exacting performance and qualification standards as all other GB athletes - we will now work hard with the sports to ensure that these athletes are best prepared."
24 November 2009
Disabled artists praise dancer's avant-garde epilepsy experiment
A dancer with epilepsy who will try to induce a seizure in front of an audience has won praise from other disabled artists for bringing the condition "out of the closet".
Award-winning dancer and choreographer Rita Marcalo will spend 24 hours trying to induce a seizure as part of Involuntary Dances, a "24-hour event" at Bradford Playhouse on 11 and 12 December.
Marcalo has stopped taking medication and, during the performance, will try to induce a seizure, for example by drinking alcohol, eating dark chocolate and using strobe lights and "specially designed computer programmes".
If she has a seizure, a "loud alarm will sound" and cameras will start recording, with the audience also encouraged to take pictures.
The Bradford event is the first in a planned trilogy by Marcalo - who has a background in physics - examining the relationships between dance, epilepsy and drug research, in collaboration with neuroscientists from Leeds University.
The 24-hour event will be a one-off, but will also be used as the basis for a film installation.
Poet Peter Street, who has epilepsy, described the performance as "a major, major move forward", as epilepsy-based art was "probably one of the last avant-garde art forms to be brought out".
He said Marcalo was "taking control" of her condition, and added: "It is all about us coming out of the closet and this is really going to bring it out with a big bang, and good luck to her."
Philip Lee, chief executive of Epilepsy Action, said his charity had received "several complaints" about Marcalo's planned performance, which he said was "potentially very dangerous".
He added: "At the very least, the performance should carry a health warning advising people that they should not attempt this themselves under any circumstances."
But a spokeswoman for Arts Council England, which is part-funding the work, said there would be a "full personal and public risk assessment", with "appropriate medical support" during the performance.
She added: "She is an important artist whose work deserves to be seen, and Arts Council both respects the creative decisions she makes in her work and supports her right as a disabled person to be heard."
Allan Sutherland, a writer with epilepsy, criticised opposition from "old-fashioned and paternalistic" epilepsy charities.
He said: "It seems to me that she is doing a carefully thought-out piece of work which I think is very interesting."
He said epilepsy was still "demonised" but usually not visible, so people with the condition do not tend to meet each other and the themes explored by Marcalo are not debated.
Sutherland said Marcalo's control over her own performance would contrast with intrusive films of seizures that are taken without permission and placed on YouTube.
Peter Street's fifth collection of poems, Thumbing from Lipik to Pakrac, was published earlier this year by Waterloo Press
24 November 2009
MPs and peers highlight discrimination faced by disabled children
A report by an influential group of MPs and peers has highlighted some of the discrimination experienced by disabled children in the UK.
The report on children's rights by the joint committee on human rights includes evidence of discriminatory attitudes towards disabled children by medical professionals and the "high incidence" of "bullying" of children with learning difficulties.
The committee was also told of disabled children whose chances of having children themselves when they were older was damaged by non-essential medical treatment.
And it heard evidence of 16 and 17-year-olds who find it difficult to access mental health services because they fall between child and adult services.
The report calls on the government to incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into UK law, a call backed by all four of the UK's children's commissioners.
The report also calls on the government to "review and explain" why there are so many children with autism in the criminal justice system, as well as those from other marginalised groups, such as Gypsies and Travellers, and why existing strategies to deal with this "appear to be failing".
It adds: "Such children, who are already likely to have experienced significant disadvantage and even discrimination in their early lives, require specific and targeted measures and support, outside of the criminal justice system."
The report also says that children with mental health conditions and learning difficulties are over-represented in youth custody, and instead need targeted support outside the criminal justice system.
Witnesses who gave evidence to the committee also raised concerns around education, such as the lack of a national strategy for including all disabled pupils in mainstream schools.
The report concludes that there have been many positive developments in the UK in the 20 years since the UN adopted the convention.
But is says there is "still much more for the UK to do, particularly for those children who live on the margins of society or who come from groups which do not always command popular public support".
No-one from the Department for Children, Schools and Families was available to comment.
Meanwhile, Baroness Walmsley, a Liberal Democrat children, schools and families spokeswoman, has introduced a children's rights bill into the Lords.
The private members' bill, which would incorporate the UN convention into UK law, was drafted with the support of members of the Rights of the Child UK (ROCK) coalition, whose members include the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education and Scope.
25 November 2009
EastEnders scoops mental health media award
The TV soap EastEnders has been recognised at an annual awards ceremony for its commitment to tackling mental health storylines realistically and sensitively.
The award was one of six won by the BBC in the Mind Mental Health Media Awards, which mark the best radio and TV treatments of mental distress over the year.
The Making a Difference award was collected by EastEnders actors Gillian Wright and Lacey Turner, who play mother and daughter Jean Slater and Stacy Branning, who both have bipolar disorder.
Following the episode earlier this year when Stacy's condition was revealed, nearly 7,000 people in five days visited a website set up to provide information about bipolar disorder.
EastEnders scriptwriters had interviewed members of the user-led charity MDF The Bipolar Organisation, and scripts were approved and revised by MDF patron Neil Tinning.
The BBC also picked up the award for best radio drama, for Radio 4's Do's and Don'ts for the Mentally Interesting, based on a blog about her life and condition by Seaneen Molloy, who has bipolar disorder.
Another award was collected for the BBC Two documentary Cracking Up, in which former Downing Street communications director Alastair Campbell reflected on his own mental health experiences.
And Tom Perry, Alastair Rolfe and Mark Payge, who were contributors to the Channel 4 documentary Chosen, won the Speaking Out award for talking about the impact of being abused as children at an English prep school.
Paul Farmer, Mind's chief executive, said: "The quality of entries has been incredibly high this year and demonstrates that positive and authentic portrayals of mental health are compatible with the kind of original, creative and groundbreaking programming we have seen this evening."
25 November 2009
Amendment to bill 'could lead to more disabled MPs'
Political parties should be required by law to publish information on how many disabled people - and other under-represented groups - are selected to fight parliamentary seats, according to a Commons committee.
The recommendation came in an interim report by the historic Speaker's Conference, which aims to find ways to increase the number of disabled, female and minority ethnic MPs.
The conference will introduce an amendment to the government's equality bill which would force registered political parties to report every six months on the diversity of their candidate selection process, and publish the reports online.
The report says such a move "may help, over time, to secure a House of Commons which is more effective, more representative of our society and in which the public feels better able to place its confidence".
Disabled people, women and those from minority ethnic groups who put themselves forward for selection as a parliamentary candidate are less likely to be selected than white men, and less likely to be selected for a seat the party thinks it can win, according to the report.
The disabled MP Anne Begg, the vice-chair of the conference, said: "Unless the performance of the different parties can be compared with each other, or with the performance of parties throughout the world, there is likely to be insufficient pressure for the political parties to pursue the cultural change which is needed from them before we can have a House of Commons fit for the 21st century."
The interim report follows evidence to the conference given by the leaders of the three main political parties in which they each admitted they needed to improve the diversity of representation within their parties.
They also agreed in principle to publish future reports on the results of candidate selections.
A Government Equalities Office spokeswoman said they were "carefully considering the content of the report".
The equality bill is due to begin its Commons report stage on 2 December.
26 November 2009
Mystery over appointment of equality watchdog commissioners
The government has been unable to explain why it has performed a U-turn on cutting the number of commissioners appointed to the board of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
Last week, the Government Equalities Office (GEO) announced the names of eight new commissioners, and two reappointed commissioners.
They will join five other EHRC board members who did not have to seek re-appointment, including the chair, Trevor Phillips.
But in July, the GEO said the number of commissioners would be cut from 15 to a maximum of 10 to "reflect a more streamlined and cost-effective board focused on delivering the equality bill".
This week, a GEO spokesman insisted the U-turn was due to the "strong and impressive" field of more than 600 applicants.
He said: "In the summer we said that the board would be restructured with a new focus on delivery, and to ensure the commission has the right mix of skills for the next phase.
"Our priority was to ensure the recruitment of the best possible field of commissioners, bearing in mind our stated need for the board to be more tightly focused on delivery, with the right mix of skills, covering all the equality strands and more business expertise."
But he said the strength of applicants allowed the GEO to appoint a "very strong board" who would "join the existing commissioners to create a stronger team to take forward the EHRC and help put the flesh on the bones of the equality bill".
Meanwhile, the EHRC has announced the names of 61 community and voluntary organisations that will receive nearly £10 million in grants, as part of its strategic funding programme.
Several disabled people's organisations secured large grants to develop advice, guidance and advocacy services.
They include Breakthrough UK, which secured £140,000; Darlington Association on Disability, which will receive £210,000; £150,000 for Disability Action Waltham Forest; and £300,000 for Disability Hackney.
Other recipients include Glasgow Disability Alliance, which secured £225,565 to develop the "next generation of disabled leaders", in conjunction with Glasgow Centre for Inclusive Living; and Living Options Devon, which has been given £351,306 to test a new, Deaf-led, rural advocacy, information and peer support service.
26 November 2009
News stories from the week-ending 20th November 2009
'Penny-pinching' government criticised over lone parents
The government has been criticised for failing to extend a vital concession to some lone parents of disabled children as part of its welfare reform bill.
The bill, which is completing its final stages in Parliament, includes measures imposing benefits sanctions on single parents who do not take steps to find work.
The government has decided not to impose these sanctions on lone parents who have children receiving the care component of disability living allowance (DLA).
But it has refused to extend this exemption to lone parents with children who only receive the mobility component of DLA.
Steve Webb MP, the Liberal Democrat shadow work and pensions secretary, said the government should extend the concession to all lone parents of children receiving "all components of DLA".
He accused the government of "penny-pinching" and said it was a "mean-spirited decision".
He said: "Lone parents who care for their disabled children already have a tough financial and emotional struggle.
"They do not need the local jobcentre breathing down their necks as well.
"These parents should not have to worry about losing their benefits if they do not want to leave their child with someone else whilst they go out to seek paid work."
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman confirmed that the exemption would not be extended to parents with children receiving the mobility component of DLA.
Meanwhile, the autism bill - which aims to improve services for people with autism - has received royal assent, becoming England's first impairment-specific act.
The health bill - which will allow the NHS to give patients direct cash payments to spend on their own treatment - has also received royal assent.
The government said this summer that these powers will be particularly useful in bringing social care and health budgets together for people with "particularly complex health and social care needs", and could have the greatest impact on people with long-term conditions or mental health needs.
'Penny-pinching' government criticised over lone parents
The government has been criticised for failing to extend a vital concession to some lone parents of disabled children as part of its welfare reform bill.
The bill, which is completing its final stages in Parliament, includes measures imposing benefits sanctions on single parents who do not take steps to find work.
The government has decided not to impose these sanctions on lone parents who have children receiving the care component of disability living allowance (DLA).
But it has refused to extend this exemption to lone parents with children who only receive the mobility component of DLA.
Steve Webb MP, the Liberal Democrat shadow work and pensions secretary, said the government should extend the concession to all lone parents of children receiving "all components of DLA".
He accused the government of "penny-pinching" and said it was a "mean-spirited decision".
He said: "Lone parents who care for their disabled children already have a tough financial and emotional struggle.
"They do not need the local jobcentre breathing down their necks as well.
"These parents should not have to worry about losing their benefits if they do not want to leave their child with someone else whilst they go out to seek paid work."
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman confirmed that the exemption would not be extended to parents with children receiving the mobility component of DLA.
Meanwhile, the autism bill - which aims to improve services for people with autism - has received royal assent, becoming England's first impairment-specific act.
The health bill - which will allow the NHS to give patients direct cash payments to spend on their own treatment - has also received royal assent.
The government said this summer that these powers will be particularly useful in bringing social care and health budgets together for people with "particularly complex health and social care needs", and could have the greatest impact on people with long-term conditions or mental health needs.
12 November 2009
Green paper will push disabled people into the red, say campaigners
Leading disability organisations are to tell the government that measures in its care and support green paper would put disabled people at greater risk of poverty and social isolation.
In their official responses to a consultation on the green paper, two umbrella organisations will both heavily criticise proposals to scrap some non-means-tested disability benefits - possibly to include attendance allowance (AA) and disability living allowance (DLA) for those over 65 - and "integrate" them into council budgets to help pay for means-tested social care.
Between them, the United Kingdom's Disabled People's Council (UKDPC) and Disability Alliance (DA) represent scores of disabled people's and disability organisations.
UKDPC, whose response followed a consultation event held with disability organisations Disability LIB and Brent Advocacy Concerns, is to tell the government that AA and DLA keep "many disabled people above the poverty line".
And DA will say that scrapping such benefits could "heighten the likelihood of disabled people living in poverty".
In DA's own online survey, with nearly 200 respondents, 93 per cent did not want disability benefits folded into council budgets for means-tested social services.
Both organisations describe AA and DLA in their consultation responses as the "ultimate individual budgets", which enable disabled people to spend the money as they choose to increase their ability to live independently and to meet their basic needs.
Both UKDPC and DA welcome large parts of the green paper, such as plans for a single system of needs assessment across England and its emphasis on personalization.
But DA will say that the absence of detail in the green paper has severely damaged the "significant positive elements of reform" and caused "many disabled people to fear the loss of support and resources at a time of significant financial insecurity".
And it will call for the government's proposed National Care Service to be funded by general taxation, just like the NHS, an option that is "supported by the vast majority of our members and the general public".
In the DA survey, nearly two-thirds supported a tax-funded system of care.
DA will also be heavily critical of the government's failure to publish some of the technical detail behind its plans until next year, including which disability benefits it is considering abolishing, at what level eligibility for support will be set under the proposed National Care Service, and a detailed breakdown of the three suggested models for funding the service.
And UKDPC will say that it is concerned that the government could be trying to remove any entitlement to services for disabled people with lower care needs, and will criticise the government for ignoring the needs of younger disabled people in the green paper.
The consultation was due to end on 13 November.
12 November 2009
Problems with student support system are 'outrageous'
Thousands of disabled students are facing lengthy delays in receiving the financial support they need to begin their university courses, the organisation that administers the scheme has admitted.
The Student Loans Company (SLC) - which is administering disabled students' allowances (DSA) for the first time this year - has apologised and launched an internal review after completing only 2,500 of 14,000 DSA applications it had received by late October.
Several thousand of these students were having their needs assessed at independent assessment centres - one of the final stages in the process - but 6,000 other applications were awaiting further information or had not yet started being processed.
SLC has now admitted that, by 12 November, it still had a three-week backlog and was only opening applications for DSA - which helps with the impairment-related costs faced by disabled students - received on 20 October.
There have also been complaints of lost medical evidence, and an "unusually high" number of applications being returned due to "inadequate medical evidence".
And many disabled students have reported being treated "rudely" by SLC call centre staff, with reports of "intrusive and inappropriate comments".
Derek Ross, deputy chief executive of SLC, said he "regrets" the difficulties and blamed this year's change to centralised processing of DSAs, and an under-estimation of how much work would be involved in the new system.
SLC has now doubled the size of its team, he said, and hopes to reduce the backlog to a week's delay by the end of November.
Ross said he was "very disappointed" with reports of poor treatment by staff.
Meanwhile, the government has ordered an independent review, following similar concerns over SLC's processing of student loans.
The British Dyslexia Association said the DSA system was in "disarray" with many students having to defer their courses or drop out altogether.
Barbara Waters, chief executive of Skill, the disabled students' charity, said SLC was "very close" to breaching its public sector duty under the Disability Discrimination Act.
She said DSA was vital for "induction, progression and adapting to university life".
She said the problems were "outrageous", particularly as disability organisations spent months working with SLC to "enable them to get this right".
Skill wants a named case worker for every DSA applicant, and a "culture change" within SLC.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said SLC was processing record numbers of applications but had "fallen short of expectations".
12 November 2009
Charities 'filling gap in services for young disabled people'
Disability charities are plugging the gap in services faced by disabled teenagers as they move into adulthood, according to a new report.
The Rights of Passage report by New Philanthropy Capital, a charity thinktank and consultancy, says many disabled young people "get lost in the no man's land between children's and adults' services".
Many feel "shut out" of decisions made about their lives, because of communication difficulties, a lack of confidence in arguing for what they want, or a failure by agencies to consult with them or their families.
As a result, says the report, "many young people who could have gone on to higher education, interesting jobs and independent lives are held back before their adult lives have even begun".
The report, which focuses on England, says support for disabled young people in this transition varies widely across the country.
Despite there being more than 600,000 disabled young people aged 14-25 in the UK, a government survey this year found only half of all local authority areas had a transition plan in place.
And only a third of all areas provided them with access to a key worker.
The report says charities are "plugging gaps" in local education, health and social care services, with some running specialist transition services, and others tackling stigma and ensuring the voices of young disabled people are heard by government.
The report says millions of pounds of government investment in disabled children will "go down the drain" if young disabled people "suddenly find themselves without the support they need to find their way in the adult world".
Clare Yeowart, co-author of the report, which aims to help funders and charities have a greater impact on transition, said: "Things that most teenagers take for granted, such as going to college or university, getting a job or simply moving away from the family home, are not happening for disabled young people because they are not getting the support they need."
Andy Lusk, executive director of services for the disability charity Scope, said the situation was reaching a critical point.
He said: "There is a severe shortage of suitable services available to young disabled people when they make the transition to adulthood.
"We even know of cases where families, as a last and often desperate measure, are forced to place their son or daughter in residential care homes intended for the elderly because there is no other placement available."
12 November 2009
Second attempt to outlaw discrimination against 'sectioned' MPs
A shadow minister is making a second attempt to change a law that discriminates against MPs with mental health conditions.
The Mental Health Act states that MPs who are sectioned under the act for at least six months must lose their seats.
Although the provision has never been used, campaigners have said that it adds to the stigma experienced by people with mental health conditions.
The former Downing Street communications director, Alastair Campbell, who has spoken openly about his own mental health experiences, has described the measure as "blatantly discriminatory" and has called for it to be scrapped.
And a report by the parliamentary group on mental health last year revealed that more than two-thirds of the 94 MPs who responded to a survey believed that MPs should not automatically lose their seat if sectioned.
In May, Mark Harper, the Conservative shadow minister for disabled people, attempted to add an amendment to the equality bill that would have outlawed the provision, but it was ruled to be outside the scope of the bill.
Now Harper has tabled an amendment to the constitutional reform and governance bill, which has reached the committee stage in the Commons. The amendment has been supported by Labour MP Lynne Jones.
Discussion of the bill will resume in the next session of Parliament, which begins on 18 November.
Harper said: "Mental ill-health is still a taboo subject in Parliament as well as the workplace and this must change.
"Changing this aspect of the law will be a small but symbolic step in redressing the stigma that people with mental health problems face in the workplace.
"It will also make Parliament a more welcoming place for those with a mental health problem."
A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: "The government is considering the matter very carefully.
"A number of bills presently before Parliament might provide opportunity for further debate on this issue - we will set out how we intend to proceed as part of those debates."
11 November 2009
Cathedral service gives thanks for ground-breaking disability act
Hundreds of people have attended a service at Manchester Cathedral held to mark the 40th anniversary of the introduction of a "ground-breaking" piece of disability legislation.
The service was held on 6 November, nearly 40 years after the House of Commons first debated the bill which was to become the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act.
The act was introduced as a private members' bill by the Labour MP Alf Morris (now Lord Morris of Manchester), whose idea it was to mark the anniversary with a service.
Music for the national service of thanksgiving was provided by Manchester's renowned Halle Orchestra.
Lord Morris read from the speech he made to introduce the bill to the Commons, while Baroness Masham, president of the Spinal Injuries Association, who made her maiden speech in the Lords on the bill, read a lesson.
A number of disability charities were represented, including the British Dyslexia Association, the Disabled Living Foundation, Guide Dogs for the Blind, RNIB, RNID, Skill, the National Autistic Society, Sense and Scope.
The disabled peer Lord (Colin) Low, who is president of both the disabled students' charity Skill and the European Blind Union, spoke about the act during the service.
Lord Low said afterwards that he told the congregation the act had been "ground-breaking" and was "a base on which a lot of provision for disabled people had been built", although further campaigning work was later needed because of the bill's "little bit less than mandatory" language.
He said the National Federation of the Blind had "made particular use" of a section which encouraged local authorities to co-opt disabled people onto their committees.
Another important section of the act created a duty on councils to provide a range of services for disabled people, he said.
Lord Low said the service had been "uplifting".
He added: "It was a most important piece of legislation and certainly worth celebrating. It was a heart-warming occasion."
Canon Gilly Myers, precentor of the cathedral, who organised and conducted the service, said Lord Morris has been "a tireless and tenacious champion of disabled people" and his act had "changed lives and lifestyles".
Introducing his bill in the Commons in 1969, Alf Morris, then MP for Wythenshawe in Manchester, had told fellow MPs: "What most disabled people want more than anything else is to lessen their dependence on other people, to get on with living their own lives as normally as they can in their own homes amongst their own family, and, wherever possible, to have the opportunity of contributing to industry and society as fully as their abilities allow."
10 November 2009
RADAR searches for leaders of the future
A disability organisation is looking for 100 ambitious disabled people to help become future leaders in the public, private and charity sectors.
RADAR's new leadership programme will bring together aspiring disabled leaders and provide them with the skills and personal development training they need.
Government figures show that only one in 20 appointees to the boards of the UK's 1,200 public bodies are disabled or have a long-term health condition.
The government aims to increase this to nearly one in seven new appointments (14 per cent) by March 2011.
RADAR secured funding over three years for the new programme from the Department for Communities and Local Government, following its previous leadership work with the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Disability Rights Commission.
David Stocks, RADAR's empowerment manager, who is a graduate of one of its previous leadership schemes, said it was "of the utmost importance" to "help disabled people realise their potential as leaders".
He said: "Disabled people are not getting enough input into the way the country is run and their voice is not being heard.
"It is time to tap into the great pool of talent that is waiting to be realised within those living with ill-health, injury or disability."
RADAR is particularly looking for applications from disabled people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, and those with learning difficulties, neuro-diversity conditions and mental health conditions, as all four groups are particularly under-represented in leadership positions.
A senior civil servant from the Office for Disability Issues will mentor those in each of the four groups.
All 100 successful applicants will be invited to four leadership development days between January and April 2010 in Manchester and Birmingham, with coaching, mentoring and workshops, and additional telephone support between the four events.
To find out more, visit: www.radar.org.uk/leadership/downloads.aspx
The closing date for applications is Monday, 7 December.
10 November 2009
News Stories from week-ending 6th November 2009
Low level of IB fraud casts doubt on reforms
New official figures have revealed the low level of fraudulent claims for incapacity benefit (IB), calling into question government attempts to justify its strict new benefits regime.
The Department for Work and Pensions figures show that just one per cent of money paid to IB claimants from April 2008 to March 2009 was fraudulently claimed.
This final estimate of one per cent - or £70 million - compares with the £120 million overpaid through official errors, and fraudulent claims for income support (2.9 per cent, £250 million) and jobseeker's allowance (2.8 per cent, £80 million).
Over the last two years, the government has used supposedly high levels of IB fraud to help justify introducing a strict "work capability assessment" (WCA) for new claimants of out-of-work disability benefits.
In April 2008, former work and pensions secretary James Purnell told the Liverpool Echo: "People who scrounge from the system take money away from legitimate (IB) claimants. Clearly we want to stop that.
"We know the number of people committing fraud is down by two-thirds, but we want to do more."
Former government welfare adviser David Freud - now a Conservative peer -told the Daily Telegraph in February 2008 that he believed fewer than a third of those claiming IB were legitimate claimants.
And in November 2007, Purnell's predecessor, Peter Hain, vowed to "rip up sicknote Britain".
Government figures released last month revealed only a small proportion of those applying for employment and support allowance - the new out-of-work disability benefit - are "passing" the WCA.
Neil Coyle, director of policy for Disability Alliance, said part of the reason the government introduced the new system was to tackle the supposed high level of fraud, but it had only succeeded in "escalating the nature of the problem so people believe all claimants are fraudulent".
He said the low levels of IB fraud did not surprise him and that the government had "used perception of fraud being at a high level to instigate extremely stringent assessment for a new benefit that disabled people cannot access".
A DWP spokeswoman insisted the government's message was "nothing to do with the fraud side of things" and all about encouraging "inactive" people to take a more "proactive approach" to getting ready for work, rather than allowing them to "languish on benefits".
She said the WCA tests "what you can do and not what you can't do", which contrasts with the personal capability assessment, the test undergone by those claiming IB.
"The whole theory behind (the new system) was to engage with people who have not engaged with the labour market for years and years."
5 November 2009
Government 'breaks green paper promise'
Disability organisations have accused the government of breaking a promise to publish the financial figures that justify large parts of its social care green paper.
Last week, care services minister Phil Hope pledged that the detailed "financial modelling" for the green paper would be published within days, and in time for campaigners to respond to them as part of the public consultation, which ends on Friday (13 November).
But the Department of Health (DH) now says the financial modelling will not be published until next year.
The figures were expected to show the evidence the government was using to justify possibly scrapping attendance allowance and other disability benefits - which may still include disability living allowance for those over 65 - which it has suggested could help fund means-tested council care services.
The failure to produce the modelling also casts doubt on the government's reasons for not including a green paper option of funding social care through general taxation.
Neil Coyle, director of policy for the disability poverty charity Disability Alliance, said: "This is not a genuine partnership consultation.
"The government have not shared the information which they have used as a basis for some quite sweeping statements.
"As it stands we don't even have a rough idea of what the green paper was based on.
"If you (believe) a tax-funded system is the fairest and most affordable and simplest system, you need to explain how it can be afforded by working age people in 20 years.
"That's quite a challenge when you don't know what the government's figures are.
"We are being asked to comment on how to fund a care service without being given an estimate of the costs we are looking at."
The Care and Support Alliance - whose members include RADAR, Carers UK, Age Concern and Help the Aged - is now planning to seek the information through a Freedom of Information Act request.
An alliance spokeswoman said: "Ministers want us to accept the 'mathematics' underpinning the green paper but don't seem to trust the figures sufficiently to publish them."
A DH spokesman said: "We asked the LSE (London School of Economics) to do the modelling for the green paper several months ago, providing them (with) our best assumptions and thinking at the time.
"A lot has changed since then and we need to take account of updated information, for example from stakeholder bodies.
"We have asked LSE to do more work for us, taking account of latest developments."
5 November 2009
Union boss calls for action on disability hate crime
A leading union boss has called for more to be done to recognise and stamp out disability hate crime.
Dave Prentis, general secretary of the public sector union UNISON, told his national disabled members conference that he wanted discussion of hate crime to be included in the national curriculum.
UNISON also wants criminal justice agencies and local authorities to do more to address disability hate crime, he said.
And he called for more "third party reporting centres", which allow disabled people to ask someone else to report a hate crime on their behalf, in order to "stop disabled people living their lives in fear".
Prentis said: "Disablism is rife within our society and attacks against disabled people are common, yet there is very little being done to record or prevent this type of hate crime.
"If crimes are perpetrated against a gay person, or someone from a minority ethnic or religious group, there can be little doubt that these would be investigated as possible hate crimes - the same attitude needs to be taken towards disability hate crimes."
Jonathan Shaw, minister for disabled people, told the conference that there was "no place in our society for disability hate crime" and that the government was addressing the issue through its new hate crime action plan.
Paul Hardisty, a disabled communications officer with Kent police, who has himself been the victim of a hate crime, said: "We need to continue recording and monitoring these disability hate crimes, so we can see it for the huge problem it is."
And fellow disabled delegate Margie Hill, who has also been the victim of a hate crime, said: "Disability hate crime needs to be acknowledged and stamped out."
Prentis also told the conference that a new union survey had revealed that more than a third of disabled members who responded said they had been bullied at work in the previous six months.
His speech came as the charity Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD) revealed that nine per cent of disabled people who responded to a national survey said they had been the victims of a disability hate crime.
John Knight, LCD's director of policy and campaigns, said the figure was "deeply worrying".
He said: "There is a clear need for more robust identification and recording of disability hate crimes, better support for disabled people who are victims of crime and improved access to justice."
5 November 2009
Survey suggests recession is forcing more disabled people into poverty
A national survey has revealed new evidence that the recession is pushing more disabled people into poverty.
The annual survey carried out by Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD) found 42 per cent of those questioned were finding it difficult or very difficult to manage on their current income, a rise of six per cent in one year.
And less than one in seven disabled people said they were living "comfortably" on their present income, according to the charity's third annual Disability Review, which was based on a survey of more than 1,200 disabled people from across the UK in January.
More than half of the respondents said they had no savings at all, apart from pensions, a rise of three per cent from last year.
And nearly one in three said that, during the last year, there had been times when they had been unable to afford to heat their home, with nearly two-thirds living in fuel poverty.
Eleanor Gore, one of the report's authors, said the findings "could be an indication that disabled people are being disproportionately affected by the recession".
The survey also found that only about two in five respondents of working age were either in paid jobs or were self-employed, while more than half of those in paid work had faced discrimination in the workplace.
And an "alarming" one in three respondents with a total income of less than £100 per week had to fund their own care package, with another 16 per cent having to fund their care with a mixture of state and personal funding.
John Knight, LCD's director of policy and campaigns, said: "With disabled people entering the recession on a profoundly unequal footing to non-disabled people, the need for a government strategy to tackle disability poverty is now more urgent than ever."
5 November 2009
Apprenticeships bill success for campaigners
Peers and campaigners have welcomed improvements to a government bill that should make it easier for disabled students to take an apprenticeship.
The government outlined how it would make entry requirements for would-be apprentices more flexible, during the Lords report stage of the apprenticeships, skills, children and learning bill.
Lord Young, the junior business, innovation and skills minister, said the government had adopted a proposal by Lord Rix, Mencap's president, to allow students with learning difficulties to submit a "portfolio of evidence" to show they are ready for an apprenticeship.
The bill had previously stated that young people would be entitled to a basic "level two" apprenticeship place only if they had five GCSEs.
Campaigning groups such as The Alliance for Inclusive Education (ALLFIE) had said this would discriminate against many young disabled people, such as those with learning difficulties.
Another new amendment will extend the entitlement to an apprenticeship - for suitably-qualified students with learning difficulties - up to the age of 25, rather than the current limit of 18.
The disabled peer Lord (Colin) Low said: "These amendments are something for which organisations representing disabled people have been asking and they are very much to be welcomed."
Following a request by Lord Low, Lord Young agreed that the government would set out a timescale for introducing the changes, and work with disability organisations on regulations, guidance and practical steps to encourage participation of those aged 19 to 25.
He also agreed with Lord Low's request for "a clear lead from the top" that recruiting disabled apprentices should be a priority.
Lord Young said the government was "absolutely committed" to working with disability organisations "to ensure that we get the regulations right in terms of the criteria and accessibility".
Lord Low, who is president of the national charity Skill: National Bureau for Students with Disabilities, also welcomed government amendments that will ensure education authorities provide transport to allow disabled students between 19 and 25 to attend their further education course if they cannot use public transport or access private transport.
He said the amendments were "a cause for celebration".
Simone Aspis, ALLFIE's campaigns and policy coordinator, welcomed the "positive" amendments but said the detail in the regulations would be key.
And she said she hoped the transport commitment would also cover access to transport for disabled learners for vital activities such as field trips and research.
4 November 2009
Sharp rise in calls to disability hate helpline
Reporting of disability hate crimes to a hotline more than trebled last year and is set to rise sharply again this year, a conference has heard.
Calls about disability hate crime made to the helpline rose from 26 in 2007-08 to 93 last year, with 80 calls already received in the first half of this year.
The figures were revealed by the anti-hate crime charity Stop Hate UK, which runs the helpline and attributed the increase to rising awareness among disabled people.
Crime reduction minister Alan Campbell told the national hate crime conference, organised by the London Borough of Havering, that the deaths of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter Francecca had focused attention on the "torment" that can come from "systematic" abuse.
An inquest in September found that Pilkington committed suicide and unlawfully killed her daughter, Francecca, after a ten-year hate campaign led by a local gang, much of it directed at Francecca, who had learning difficulties.
Campbell said: "We need to work together to make sure that offenders are dealt with, but also crucially that victims are protected and supported."
He said new guidance for Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships, to be issued as part of the government's hate crime action plan, would help deal with "campaigns of prejudice and hate" such as that experienced by the Pilkington family.
But he said it was crucial to "build confidence" so victims of hate crime "feel able to come forward".
Mark Brookes, a senior policy worker at the learning difficulties charity Values Into Action, said: "People with learning difficulties should act together to break the silence and learn about hate crime."
He said more must be done to ensure people with learning difficulties know what a hate crime is and are confident enough to report such crimes.
But he called for "action and not strategies" and said he was tired of "just repeating and repeating" the hate crime message.
He said he himself has had eggs and tomatoes thrown at him and is afraid to leave his house after 8pm, as are many other people with learning difficulties.
Abigail Lock, Scope's head of advocacy and campaigns, called for joined-up inter-agency working, for tackling disability hate crime to become a mainstream issue, and for investment in third-party reporting centres.
And Bennett Obong, project manager of the Metropolitan Police Authority's hate crime forum, said: "It is actions that make a difference...communities need to see that there is a response from the agencies that have a responsibility."
4 November 2009
Minister faces schools inclusion questions
A schools minister has faced a series of critical questions on what the government is doing to improve mainstream education for disabled children.
Diana Johnson MP was speaking to a joint meeting of parliamentary groups on disability, children, autism and youth affairs.
She told the meeting that £340 million had been allocated to improve short breaks, community equipment and wheelchair provision, and palliative care, through the child health strategy earlier this year.
The same sum was allocated to improve council services over the same period of 2008-11, through the Aiming High for Disabled Children (AHDC) programme.
Johnson said that in 2008-09, in 21 pathfinder areas developing best practice in short breaks, there were nearly 13,000 more overnight breaks than in 2007-08, and 376,000 more hours of daytime short break provision, although AHDC was not yet "embedded throughout the country".
But Baroness (Jane) Campbell asked what plans the government had for improving inclusion into mainstream education for disabled children, as they "still have to fight to get into mainstream schools" and many schools are "still not accessible to the standard that should be met under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)".
Caroline Ellis, joint deputy chief executive of RADAR, asked whether the minister was in favour of including, in the new equality bill, a right for support for disabled pupils by ensuring they have access to auxiliary aids and services, as recommended by the Disability Rights Commission (DRC).
But Johnson said she was "not sure the equality bill would be the best place" for such an amendment and that it was "something we need to have a look at and see what is the best way of taking that forward".
Ellis also raised concerns about the potential "watering-down" of the disability equality duty in the equality bill.
And she said many schools had not even bothered to draw up a disability equality scheme.
After the meeting, a Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) spokesman said the government was working with schools and local authorities to raise awareness of schools' duties under the DDA, including visits, workshops and an "easy to understand pamphlet" being circulated to teachers.
He said the DCSF had also introduced a minimum design standard for secondary schools, which includes regulations on disabled facilities, as well as "clear school design guidance to make sure that all buildings have good facilities for children with disabilities and special educational needs".
3 November 2009
Prize-winning photograph will put minister's visitors in the picture
An award-winning disabled entrant in a photography competition has had his picture chosen to decorate the wall of a government minister's office.
Tim Thackeray won a gold award in Mencap's Snap! national photography and film competition with Open Strings, a picture of him playing his violin.
Now that picture is to be hung on the wall of care services minister Phil Hope.
Thackeray visited the Department of Health this week to deliver the photograph to the minister.
He said it "feels great" and was a "fantastic achievement" for his picture to be chosen to hang on the minister's wall.
He said: "It took a lot of effort and time. It's a picture I want to look at every time I pass it."
The minister decided to buy Thackeray's picture after he was a presenter at the Snap! awards ceremony at London's Proud Galleries in June.
Hope said: "The picture for me summed up a way of challenging stereotypical attitudes towards what people with learning disabilities enjoy doing and what they can do."
He said the picture also illustrates the government's attitudes towards people with learning difficulties, following the publication of its Valuing People Now and Valuing Employment Now strategies.
Hope said: "It's about saying that people with learning disabilities need services that enable them to fulfil their aspirations and have their life chances, like everyone else.
"Valuing Employment Now is saying many more people with learning disabilities could get into training or part-time or full-time work if you overcome the barriers.
"Tim is a very good example of someone who is overcoming those barriers."
He said he hoped the photograph would also help challenge the attitudes of visitors to his office, although he would not say which visitors might need such a challenge.
But he added: "I think everybody needs to be reminded about what learning disability is and what people with learning disabilities can do."
3 November 2009
Project Search pilots ready for lift-off
The government has announced the 14 pilot projects that will test a new internship scheme for people with learning difficulties.
Project Search provides a group of people with "moderate or severe" learning difficulties with a year-long series of supported, unpaid work placements with a single employer - and classroom tuition - while they remain on benefits.
Project Search is modelled on an idea first trialled in the US, and aims to provide work and social skills that will help the interns into real jobs.
The scheme is part of the Valuing Employment Now cross-government strategy, which aims to "radically" increase the number of people with moderate and severe learning difficulties in work by 2025.
The pilots, which will start across England next September, include projects in councils, hospitals, a social services department, a further education college and the pensions, disability and carers service run by the Department for Work and Pensions in Newcastle.
The government says Project Search has been successful in the US, with four in five interns who completed the programme in 2006-07 now in full-time employment.
And it said between 25 and 40 per cent of US interns are hired by the host organisations.
Jonathan Shaw, minister for disabled people, said: "We realise that only a small number of people with learning disabilities who receive adult social services are in work and we know that many more want real jobs.
"It's our duty to give them all the help and support they need to get into and stay in work."
Phil Hope, minister for care services, added: "We are committed to removing the barriers individuals with learning disabilities face getting into paid work and promoting good practice.
"Project Search has a proven track record in the USA in helping employers tap into the talent and skills those with learning disabilities have to offer."
2 November 2009
Appeal ruling confirms 'landmark' DDA victory for carers
An appeals court has confirmed a ground-breaking decision that carers can secure protection from discrimination under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).
The European Court of Justice ruled in July 2008 that those "associated" with disabled people, such as carers, also had rights under the DDA.
An employment tribunal judge subsequently confirmed that the DDA could apply to "associative" discrimination.
The employment appeal tribunal has now confirmed that decision, with Mr Justice Underhill dismissing an appeal against the judge's ruling.
The case that sparked the appeal involves carer Sharon Coleman, who claims she was forced to quit her job as a legal secretary in 2005 after she was discriminated against by her former employer.
She claims that London legal firm Attridge Law accused her of being "lazy" when she needed to take time off to care for her disabled son, and threatened her with disciplinary action.
Mr Justice Underhill said that Coleman's case could now, "at last", be heard by an employment tribunal.
Ruth Scott, director of policy and campaigns at disability charity Scope, welcomed the "landmark" ruling.
She said: "This is a great result - it goes some way towards recognising the important role informal carers play in supporting disabled children, adults and older people and highlighting the specific types of discrimination they experience.
"This landmark ruling will become all the more important as demographic changes result in more people trying to balance work and caring responsibilities."
2 November 2009
News Stories from week-ending 29th October 2009
Harper tries to quell alarm over Conservative welfare reforms
The Conservative shadow minister for disabled people has laid out some of the key differences between his party and the government on the heated and controversial issue of incapacity benefit (IB) reform.
Mark Harper MP has expanded on the radical welfare reform programme outlined during the party's annual conference in Manchester earlier this month.
His comments come as many campaigners have expressed alarm at the prospect of a contest between the Conservatives and Labour over which party can sound toughest on IB reform.
Harper says he is "well aware" of the "anecdotal evidence" of problems with the operation of the work capability assessment (WCA) - the test for all new claimants of out-of-work disability benefits, which has just passed its first anniversary - particularly for those with mental health and other fluctuating and long-term conditions.
There has been a series of warnings from campaigning organisations that the new system is inflexible, riddled with errors and fails to reflect disabled people's daily lives.
Harper says: "The principle of having a test is sound, but it needs to deal with those more complex and fluctuating conditions."
But he says he cannot pledge to change the test until he has a greater depth of information about how it is working. His party has tabled parliamentary questions to try to secure this data.
He says: "First of all we just need to look at what the data says about the test.
"If the testing that is going on is not properly dealing with certain groups of people then clearly we need to address that."
Both his party and the government are now proposing to test everyone on IB through the WCA over three years from 2010.
There are concerns that so many assessments - possibly as many as three million when taking into account new claimants over those three years - could expose disabled people to even more mistakes and hardship.
Harper says he is "very well aware of the concerns that groups have got" with how the WCA is already working.
But he says: "This is doable. We are not inventing a new process. We want to do it fast because we want to make sure those people get the help.
"It clearly is a challenge. It's not going to be a walk in the park. But not doing it means saying to those people we are not going to provide you with the help and support you need to get into work."
Although he does not accept that it could easily take longer than three years to test everyone on IB, he does not rule out this possibility either.
He says: "We will need to see how fast we can do it. At this point, we don't know.
"We want to be able to reassess the existing IB claimants as soon as practically possible.
"Clearly if we find that is not practical we may have to go back to it."
Harper also defends his party's plan to scrap all the government's individual back-to-work programmes, such as the New Deal for Disabled People and Pathways to Work, and replace them with one single welfare-to-work scheme.
He says one of the key differences with government policy is that a Conservative government would refer everyone on out-of-work benefits to a welfare-to-work provider for targeted, personalised help.
Everyone on IB or the new employment and support allowance (ESA) would be referred to a welfare-to-work provider "immediately", he says.
This is possible, he says, because the Conservative treasury team has agreed that expected benefits savings secured by finding people jobs can be used to pay for an expanded back-to-work programme.
He says this would mean that disabled people who should have been on ESA but end up on jobseeker's allowance (JSA) instead could still secure support to find work, although he accepts that they will be receiving a lower rate of benefit.
He says: "For most of the people on IB at the moment, (the government) do not have anything to offer them almost for the whole (of the next) parliament. That's the single biggest difference (between the parties)."
He says the government's Invest to Save pilots, which will also use benefits savings to fund work programmes, would help only a small proportion of those on IB.
Another key difference between the two parties, he says, is that a Conservative government would ensure bigger rewards for welfare-to-work providers who find jobs for those people who are the hardest to help into work.
There would also be a "more robust" emphasis on ensuring that those jobs are sustainable, which would be of "particular help" for people with fluctuating conditions.
Harper also claims that a Conservative government would address the workplace barriers that disabled people face, for instance through mental health anti-stigma campaigns and ensuring that the NHS provides better support for employers taking on new staff with health conditions.
And he tries to quell fears that disabled people who fail the WCA and are forced onto JSA might have their benefits cut, for instance if they refuse inappropriate jobs.
He says: "If you assume people on JSA are capable of work, they should not have the option of not working and continuing to claim benefit."
But he says welfare-to-work providers would be "expected to provide" the support those people needed.
29 October 2009
Businesses' standards are rising, slowly
Companies and public sector bodies are improving their performance on disability, although progress in some key areas is still limited, according to an assessment by the leading employers' organisation on disability.
Every two years, scores of private and public sector organisations take part in the Disability Standard "benchmarking" process organised by the Employers' Forum on Disability (EFD).
The process is designed to test accurately how well they are performing on how disability affects their business, and works on a self-assessment basis, with supporting evidence validated by experts.
This year, 21 of the 106 organisations that took part - seven private and 14 public sector - scored at least 80 per cent in the test, compared with 13 out of 116 organisations in 2007.
The average score was 63 per cent, compared with 57 per cent in 2007.
BT and the British Library shared the award for this year's best performance.
EFD said the results from the 2009 Disability Standard "clearly show that organisations are making progress towards achieving disability equality in specific areas", although progress in other areas was "limited".
The results show that three-fifths of boards or senior management teams regularly review progress on disability equality, 18 per cent higher than in 2007.
But only 28 per cent of organisations - the same as in 2007 - have made an "effective economic and ethical case" for disability equality, although a further 58 per cent are working on this.
Nine in ten organisations offer adjustments to job candidates at every stage of the selection process, although only 39 per cent require everyone involved with recruitment and selection to attend disability equality training - just five per cent more than in 2007.
Two thirds of employers track how successful they are in retaining disabled employees, but only about half monitor the number of disabled people who apply for jobs and how they progress through the recruitment process.
And only 49 per cent ensure that training and development is accessible for disabled staff.
Only 44 per cent of organisations are confident that their websites are accessible, while the same percentage ensure their products and services are accessible.
Susan Scott-Parker, EFD's chief executive, said: "The good news from the Disability Standard 2009 is that, overall, organisations are improving."
But she added: "In such challenging economic times, all organisations should ensure they are reaching out to disabled and older customers and harnessing the talents of disabled employees.
"Given one in three people are disabled or close to someone who is, organisations that meet the needs of disabled customers win more business."
29 October 2009
Councils 'failing on equipment assessments'
Some councils are failing to meet their legal duties to carry out proper assessments of disabled people who come to them needing aids and adaptations, according to a report launched this week.
In his annual report, Sir Richard Tilt, the social fund commissioner, says there have been "a number of cases" in which social services departments failed to carry out proper assessments of a disabled person's needs.
Some social services departments said they did not provide help with aids such as electrically-operated, adjustable beds or chairs.
Others emphasized how "crucial" a piece of equipment was, but then referred the disabled person to the social fund, which provides grants and interest-free loans to people under short-term "exceptional" financial pressure.
Sir Richard says in his report, which was published in July but launched this week: "It is clear from the cases we see that applicants are confused about who has responsibility for assessing and meeting their needs for aids and other specialist items.
"It is unacceptable that people who are often in desperate situations and with urgent needs find themselves passed between their local authority and the Social Fund.
"Social services have the primary responsibility for provision in this area; as the appropriate experts, they are also best placed to assess someone's needs and to decide on the most appropriate means of meeting those needs."
He also says in his report that it is "essential" that the government provides an "appropriate increase" in the social fund grants budget so that "all high priority needs can be met consistently" across Britain.
He says the budget of £141 million for community care grants - aimed at the poorest people in society - has not increased since 2006.
During 2008/2009, his report says, the pressure on budgets "increased significantly", which meant many areas were unable to meet all high priority needs.
This meant people were left without basic household items such as fridges or settees, despite their urgent need.
Sir Richard says the problem is "likely to get worse in the coming year".
A Department for Work and Pensions spokeswoman said: "Community care grants are just one part of the important support available to help people live independently in their community, for example, after leaving care.
"It's important that people continue to get this valuable help and that's why the Budget committed an additional £270 million to the Social Fund."
29 October 2009
Bill changes 'will empower disabled people'
Changes to a government bill that should give disabled people more control over the support they receive from the state will deliver a real boost to their independence and inclusion in society, according to a disabled peer.
Baroness (Jane) Campbell was speaking during the Lords report stage of the welfare reform bill, which includes measures to create a "right to control" for disabled people.
Right to control (RTC) will put state funds from programmes such as access to work, the independent living funds and disabled students' allowances into personal budgets - single pots of money - for disabled people to use as they wish.
RTC will be piloted by a small number of "trailblazing" councils, before the government decides whether to roll it out nationally.
But thanks to amendments proposed by Lord McKenzie, the junior work and pensions minister - following discussions this summer with Baroness Campbell and the disability charity RADAR - the pot of money will now also include funds from local authority care services.
And further government amendments, proposed by Baroness Crawley - again following discussions with Baroness Campbell and RADAR - mean disabled people will be more firmly at the centre of the RTC process.
Councils will have to tell a disabled person of their "right to control" and how much money is available for their support, and work with them to ensure their support plan "reflects their individual needs and ambitions".
Baroness Campbell, who was praised for her role in helping draft the amendments, said RTC "has the potential to empower disabled people to become more active socially and economically by putting them in the driving seat of their support".
She said: "There are hard times ahead for everyone who needs extra support to engage in their communities.
"More than ever, we need the right to control that support so that every penny is spent on what we know - what disabled people know - will make us independent and ready to take our part in society."
She said both sets of amendments "take us towards that goal", and she praised Lord McKenzie and his officials "for showing not only how co-production can be done, but actually genuinely doing it".
The disabled peer Baroness (Celia) Thomas, a Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokeswoman, said the amendments "herald a real shift in power from the state to disabled people and pave the way for the right to control to become the genuine one-stop empowerment shop that we all want it to be".
The amendments were also backed by Lord Freud, for the Conservatives.
28 October 2009
Questions remain over disability benefits plans
Care services minister Phil Hope has again refused to say which disability benefits - in addition to attendance allowance (AA) - the government is considering scrapping as part of its care and support reforms.
The government said in a green paper in July that it was considering "integrating" some disability benefits, including AA, to help fund means-tested council care services.
Last week, it ruled out scrapping disability living allowance (DLA) for those under 65, although the Department of Health suggested it was still considering doing so for those over 65.
This week, Hope answered questions about the green paper at a joint meeting of parliamentary groups, including those on disability and social care.
He admitted there had been a "very high volume of responses about AA and DLA" in the Big Care Debate green paper consultation.
But he also claimed the government had never intended to scrap DLA for those under 65 as part of its plans for a "National Care Service".
He said the announcement by health secretary Andy Burnham ruling out scrapping DLA for under-65s was made "largely because it was never included in the first place" but also because of "the uncertainty it was causing" disabled people.
But the disabled Labour peer Baroness (Rosalie) Wilkins asked him: "The green paper talks about other disability benefits. Could you be specific about what disability benefits are being considered?"
Hope replied: "Primarily we have modelled AA and we are keen to hear people's views about whether there are any other benefits that might be put in."
When she repeated her question, Hope said: "I am happy to listen to people, (to) what they believe. At the moment we have only modelled AA."
Baroness (Jane) Campbell asked how the government would decide which disabled people were so impaired that they would qualify for free personal care at home, as announced by Gordon Brown during Labour's party conference. Hope said he could not yet say.
He said the consultation revealed "overwhelming support" for a National Care Service, built on features such as "prevention", "personalisation" and a single assessment system.
He also admitted the consultation had revealed "a lot of support" for a tax-funded care system.
Hope said the government should be able to produce more detailed figures on the various financial models outlined in the green paper by the end of October.
A care and support white paper is due early in 2010.
28 October 2009
Assessment's first birthday sparks warnings from campaigners
Two charities have marked the first anniversary of the introduction of the government's work capability assessment (WCA) with separate warnings about how the test is working.
The warnings came only days after the first official figures on the WCA revealed only a small proportion of those applying for employment and support allowance (ESA) - the out-of-work disability benefit for new claimants - are "passing" the strict new test.
Now a survey has found that many younger people with Parkinson's disease who apply for ESA believe they are instead being placed unfairly on jobseeker's allowance (JSA) and pronounced fit for work, or forced into early retirement.
Disabled people on ESA are given personalised support and a higher level of benefits but expected to take part in work-related activity, or placed in a "support group" if they do not have to engage in work-related activity.
But the Parkinson's Disease Society (PDS) said the "tick-box style" WCA does not take into account fluctuating conditions such as Parkinson's.
The PDS survey of 40 people under 65 with Parkinson's found two-fifths of respondents who applied for ESA were judged fit for work and put onto JSA or forced into early retirement.
Another one in five was placed in the ESA work-related activity group.
More than nine in ten of these two groups thought that decision was wrong.
PDS called for more time for assessments, training for assessors on complex conditions like Parkinson's, and for previous medical records to be properly taken into account.
Val Buxton, PDS's director of policy, campaigns and information, said: "We want to see these changes happen as soon as possible, to make sure that no-one with complex conditions like Parkinson's is unfairly accused of being a benefits cheat."
Meanwhile, Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) said the first year of the ESA/WCA was one of "misery and frustration" for disabled people and those with health conditions.
CAS said its bureaux had been "flooded" with complaints about the new system, which has been characterized by a "catalogue of errors".
Some claimants have been judged ineligible for ESA, despite "clear evidence" from GPs that they are not fit to work, while others have experienced payment delays or been given conflicting advice by Jobcentre Plus staff.
CAS called for consistency in assessments, clearer guidelines for staff, faster appeals and a guaranteed "same-day payment" for those who need crisis loans because of problems caused by the new system.
27 October 2009
Independent living bill falls again
The latest attempt to introduce legislation that would guarantee disabled people a legal right to independent living has again ended in failure.
Labour MP Roger Berry, one of the leading disability rights campaigners in the Commons, had introduced a private members' bill following its successful progress through the Lords under the stewardship of Lord (Jack) Ashley.
But Berry was not successful in last year's MPs' ballot and so could not secure time for the disabled persons (independent living) bill to be debated in the Commons, and he was forced to withdraw it.
He said he would attempt to introduce the bill again after the next ballot later this year, at the start of the new parliamentary session, although a private members' bill is never likely to become law without government support.
But Berry said it was also vital to continue campaigning on independent living issues through the consultation on the government's care and support green paper, which ends on 13 November.
He said: "I think a lot of effort has got to go into trying to address some of the issues that are in the bill.
"We have got to concentrate on getting some firm responses into the green paper.
"It is a broad-based consultation on social care that enables any organisation to come forward with any issues on independent living that they wish."
26 October 2009
GB swimmers top table at European championships
The British disabled swimming team topped the medal table at the European IPC championships in Reykjavik, Iceland, after scooping 39 gold medals, 32 silvers and 23 bronzes.
And a string of British swimmers left the championships with multiple gold medals.
Heather Frederiksen, Louise Watkin, Ellie Simmonds and Stephanie Millward all won five golds each, while Matt Walker won four and Sascha Kindred won three.
The team also returned with several European and world records.
Among them, Simmonds broke the world record in the SM6 200m individual medley, and teamed up with Millward, Lauren Steadman and Watkin to smash the European record by 16 seconds in the 34-point women's 4x100m freestyle relay.
Frederiksen set a new world record in the S8 50m freestyle, but perhaps the most noteworthy performance was that of the women's 34-point 4x100m medley relay team of Frederiksen, Claire Cashmore, Millward and Watkin, who knocked 13 seconds off the nine-year-old world record.
The British team's head coach, Lars Humer, said: "This has been a great result for all of us and it was down to a real team effort.
"What was really pleasing is that we had a crop of youngsters that stood up here and did a good job, but we also saw good performances from some of our other athletes too.
"We are aware that the whole of Europe is moving on but we finished on the top of the medal table, which shows that we are keeping ahead of the developments.
"Looking forward we need to make sure that our rate of improvement is as good as everyone else's."
Meanwhile, three female Paralympic stars have been shortlisted for a prestigious sporting award.
Archer Danielle Brown, who won a gold medal in Beijing; cyclist Sarah Storey - who won five Paralympic swimming golds before switching to cycling and winning two golds in Beijing; and GB wheelchair basketball star Clare Strange, have all been nominated in the Disabled Sportswoman of the Year category of The Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year Awards 2009.
Winners are due to be announced on 3 November.
26 October 2009
Reality TV star Sophie Morgan issues 'miracle cure' warning
A disabled campaigner and reality TV star has issued a stark warning to disabled people considering travelling abroad for unproven stem cell "treatments" and "cures".
Sophie Morgan was one of three young disabled people who appeared in a BBC2 Horizon documentary this week about developments in stem cell therapies for those with impairments such as spinal cord injuries, heart conditions and amputated limbs.
But the programme also looked at some of the private clinics in countries such as India and China that advertise "cures" on the internet, and often make wild, unfounded claims for stem cell therapies.
Morgan, who has appeared in the BBC reality shows Britain's Missing Top Model and Beyond Boundaries and now heads the campaigning charity Imperfect, had approached the BBC about the idea of researching such therapies.
But she said she was unprepared for what she discovered during filming.
She learned of disabled people who visited China for unproven "cures" and returned with pneumonia or pressure sores.
One US specialist in spinal cord injuries told Horizon that he knew of disabled people who had spent $50,000 on "completely unethical", "snake oil" treatments, and how the clinics involved refused to conduct trials into their supposed miracle cures.
Morgan says: "It is a dangerous game to play and it is a risk that we need to be more informed about. The problem is that there is not that much information out there.
"I know there are a lot of people going out to find cures and treatment but they need to know the risks and dangers."
As someone who was not born disabled but acquired a spinal injury, her life now is about celebrating disability and diversity, she says, but there is still a part of her that "would love to go back to the way I was".
"For spinally-injured people it is a very difficult world to adapt to and if there was a cure I think most people would go back to the way they were."
The programme suggested that genuine, successful treatments for spinal cord injuries may not be many years away.
Morgan says she was encouraged by what she discovered about current stem cell research, and she now understands the need for properly regulated trials.
"It is a waiting game and we have to remain patient," she says, "but there is hope around the corner."
27 October 2009
Crescendo's first tour for 13 years will pay tribute to movement
One of Britain's best-known disability rights activists is to embark on an international tour highlighting the achievements of some of the leading figures of the disabled people's movement from the last 40 years.
Alan Holdsworth founded the Disabled People's Direct Action Network (DAN) in the UK and has been an activist and campaigner for more than 30 years.
And as singer-songwriter Johnny Crescendo, he was one of the first artists to write and sing about the movement.
Now - through talk and stories interspersed with songs - he hopes to bring its history to life.
He moved to the United States five years ago with his wife and children, but is set to return to the UK with his Songs of Freedom tour, which will be part autobiography and part "verbal and musical chronology" of the movement.
The idea for the tour partly came from writing his autobiography, which he says has made him review the mistakes he has made, the lessons he has learned and the people who have shaped his life.
He already has dates planned next May, June and July in Sweden, Norway, the US, England and Northern Ireland, and is "excited" at the prospect of touring for the first time in 13 years.
The songs will include favourites from his back catalogue such as Pride, Tear Down the Walls and Choices and Rights, one of the first disability rights songs.
He wants to pay tribute to some of the key figures from the movement, such as Ken and Maggie Davis, Mike Oliver, Vic Finkelstein and the American independent living activist Wade Blank.
But he also wants to look back at some of his mistakes and regrets, such as DAN's refusal to sit round the table with ministers and disability charities when the government was drawing up the Disability Discrimination Act in the early 1990s.
As part of the tour, he is also hoping to give talks, and is keen to engage and debate with disability studies students, discussing concepts like the social model, disability pride, disability culture and independent living.
Now 57, he says he wants people to hear the stories of the rise of the disabled people's movement firsthand and to get back to having "a dialogue with disabled people again".
"There are some great ideas out there and it is our responsibility to keep them going," he says. "They are still as relevant today as they were 40 years ago. We haven't completed the mission."
He wants his audience to go away thinking about the social model and how they are still being "screwed". "Then maybe," he says, "people will start getting angry again."
To contact Johnny Crescendo or for more information, visit: www.myspace.com/johnnycrescendo or www.johnnycrescendo.com or email adaptdan@yahoo.
23 October 2009
News Stories from week-ending 22nd October 2009
Minister promises DLA is safe - but only until you are 65
Health secretary Andy Burnham has promised that the government will not scrap disability living allowance (DLA), but only for disabled people under the age of 65.
Speaking at the national children and adult services conference in Harrogate, Burnham said he wanted to "close down" the debate and controversy over the future of DLA.
But he suggested that the government had previously been considering scrapping DLA, and that scrapping DLA for those aged over 65 was still an option.
Disabled people over 65 can currently receive DLA, as long as they claimed the benefit for the first time before they reached 65.
Burnham said: "We recognise that this is an important benefit for disabled people, and I can state categorically that we have now ruled out any suggestion that DLA for under-65s will be brought into the new National Care Service."
He said this was because "the majority of the people needing care in the future will be older people".
Questioned afterwards about the future of DLA, a Department of Health spokeswoman said: "No decision on that has been made yet for those over 65.
"It is still open to consultation. Depending on what they say we will make a decision."
Concerns over the future of DLA, a key disability benefit, which is not means-tested and is intended to cover the extra costs of an impairment, were raised after the government published its care and support green paper in July.
The green paper said the government was considering "integrating" some disability benefits, including attendance allowance (AA), to help social services fund means-tested personal budgets.
Thousands of disabled people have protested about the threat to DLA and AA.
More than 13,000 people signed up within five days to a campaign launched by the Benefits and Work website, while many disabled people expressed their concerns on the government's Big Care Debate website.
And a petition calling on the prime minister to save AA and DLA, launched on the Number 10 website by members of the Disability Charities Consortium, has secured more than 18,000 signatures.
Burnham also repeated the threat to AA, saying that the government was still considering "bringing together elements of some disability benefits, such as attendance allowance, with social care funding, to create a new care and support system to provide for the needs of older and disabled people".
He said anyone receiving any of the relevant benefits at the time of reform would continue to receive an "equivalent level of support and protection" under the new system.
22 October 2009
Police criticised over hate crime murder claim
Campaigners have questioned the latest failure by a police force to treat the brutal murder of a disabled person as a disability hate crime.
Kevin Walsh, from Warrington, was attacked in his own home by his "friend" Andrew Blaine, 25, also from Warrington.
Walsh, who had a physical impairment, was repeatedly stabbed and punched, and suffocated, in a sustained attempt to kill him, before having his throat cut.
Blaine had been entrusted with the details of Walsh's post office account after befriending him, and used this access to steal his disability benefits.
Cheshire police believe Walsh was probably killed because he confronted Blaine about stealing his money, at the end of an evening spent drinking and watching television together.
Blaine pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison, with a recommendation that he serve at least 17 years.
One of the "aggravating" factors taken into account in setting the sentence was that Walsh was "vulnerable".
But disabled campaigners have again criticised the decision to describe a disabled person subjected to a violent crime as "vulnerable" rather than as a hate crime victim.
It follows a string of cases in which disabled people have died violent deaths that were motivated by disability hatred but not treated as disability hate crimes by police.
Anne Novis, who leads on hate crime issues for the United Kingdom's Disabled People's Council, believes Walsh was murdered because he was disabled.
She said: "If you are picked on just because you are a disabled person, if you are targeted because you are perceived as vulnerable, you are being targeted because you are disabled, then it is a hate crime.
"The police are changing, but they need to change quicker."
Stephen Brookes, coordinator of the National Disability Hate Crime Network, said: "To me as a disabled person, such a crime which specifically targets the individual in terms of exploitation and opportunism does send the message that the crime was motivated because of disability."
Cheshire police said Walsh was "vulnerable" and "frail" and that nothing emerged during their investigation to suggest a hate crime, with no indication that Blaine "had any view on Kevin's disability".
Bernard Byrne, district crown prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "Where there is evidence available to prove that an offence is aggravated by hostility based on the victim's disability, we will do our utmost to ensure that that evidence is put before the court for sentencing purposes.
"In this case, we considered very carefully whether we could prove that the assault was motivated by hostility based on Mr Walsh's disability, but we decided we had insufficient evidence to do so."
22 October 2009
Autism bill set to become law
A private members' bill that aims to improve services for people with autism is set to become law.
The autism bill completed its final stage in the House of Lords on 22 October and will become England's first impairment-specific act once it receives royal assent.
The bill, which had been introduced in the Commons by Conservative MP Cheryl Gillan, was drafted by the National Autistic Society (NAS) on behalf of a coalition of autism charities, and secured cross-party support.
The NAS warned health and social care services that they could now face legal action if they failed to provide support for people with autism.
But the passing of the bill has not been universally welcomed.
Adrian Whyatt, chair of the campaigning user group Neurodiversity International, said there were major omissions in the bill, and highlighted its failure to deal with sensory access, communication issues and user-empowerment.
He said it was an "old-fashioned medical model-type bill designed to create more traditional services".
And he criticised the failure to include an amendment that would have guaranteed the involvement of user-led organisations in drawing up the government's adult autism strategy and associated guidance.
Whyatt said it would only be clear whether the new act was "an opportunity or a threat" once it had been implemented.
Mark Lever, chief executive of the NAS, said thousands of adults with autism had told the charity they were experiencing serious mental health difficulties due to a lack of support.
He said: "fter a year of lobbying, this is the watershed moment they have been waiting for - this law could literally transform lives."
The bill received government backing during its Commons committee stage, and now includes various government measures.
These include a duty on the government to introduce a legally-enforceable adult autism strategy for England by April 2010, and guidance for councils and NHS bodies by the end of 2010.
The guidance will include measures to strengthen information about the number of people with autism and their needs; improve the planning of services as children move to adulthood; and ensure better access to services for adults with autism.
The bill also includes a statutory duty on councils and NHS bodies to follow the guidance.
Gillan said the bill's success was "a triumph for people with autism and their families" and "a real testament to the overwhelming level of parliamentary support for this chronically excluded group".
22 October 2009
Trailblazers set their sights on discrimination in pubs, clubs and museums
Young campaigners are to investigate whether cinemas, football grounds and museums are breaching the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), in their latest probe into the access barriers facing young disabled people.
Volunteers will conduct undercover investigations into leisure facilities in villages, towns and cities across the UK and will give star ratings to access at local facilities in their area, such as pubs, clubs, theatres and leisure centres.
Up to 150 young people will be involved in the investigation.
The latest study is the third part of the Inclusion Now! campaign run by the Trailblazers network of young volunteers, which is part of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign (MDC).
Already this year the Trailblazers have investigated the barriers in securing a university education and using public transport.
Now they hope to highlight barriers, present solutions and highlight good practice in the leisure industry, and name and shame the worst offenders.
And they have not ruled out taking legal action against leisure providers that refuse to improve poor access.
Leisure, transport and higher education were selected for investigation after being highlighted by Trailblazers as areas where they were facing access barriers.
Some wheelchair-users had been branded a "fire risk" at cinemas, and were refused entry to sports and music venues.
Trailblazer David Gale, from Carlisle, said he encounters "vast differences" in access at the football grounds he visits.
He said: "The DDA says that 'reasonable adjustments' need to be made to make sure venues and leisure attractions are fully accessible.
"This investigation will ask whether this law is being broken.
"I hope this investigation will expose what some places are doing right and how others can improve to make sure everyone can enjoy them."
Philip Butcher, MDC's chief executive, said: "Many people take for granted the ability to watch a film, to visit a museum or to support their local football team.
"This simply is not an option to some disabled people if leisure facilities fail to conform to the DDA.
"The Trailblazers are determined, motivated and passionate about making society more accessible and I'm sure this report will have impact."
To take part in the investigation, including the chance to fill in an online survey, visit: http://www.mdctrailblazers.org/campaigns/185#
21 October 2009
Political parties back moves for more disabled MPs
The leaders of the three main political parties have signaled that they are prepared to take action to make it easier for disabled people to become MPs.
Prime minister Gordon Brown, Conservative leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg were giving evidence to the historic Speaker's Conference, which aims to find ways to increase the number of disabled, female and minority ethnic MPs.
Of the three, Clegg spoke most clearly about the barriers facing disabled candidates.
He said he believed there were no "systematic barriers" of discrimination against disabled people within his party, but the problem was that not enough candidates from all minorities were coming forward to be considered.
He said this was because parliament was "off-putting" to potential MPs, with no creche and no proper access for disabled people.
And he said disabled candidates do not receive financial support for reasonable adjustments in the workplace while they fight their seat, as they would in a normal job.
He said about five per cent of selected Liberal Democrat candidates were disabled people, and many were fighting winnable seats.
The prime minister said Labour recognised disabled people faced barriers in seeking selection, such as access, and "in some cases finance and prejudice".
Responding to a question from the disabled Labour MP Anne Begg, the conference vice-chair, Brown said "only 2.5 per cent" of Labour candidates have self-declared as disabled people.
He said: "We must therefore try to remove whatever barriers do exist - and I recognise that some of them have to be financial, as well as access, mobility and everything else - to representation."
He said new laws could be considered "if necessary" to make parliament more representative.
The Conservative leader, David Cameron, failed to mention disabled people in his long opening statement, unlike the other two leaders, but he later suggested, in answer to a question, that his party was considering setting up a fund to support disabled candidates.
He said: "On the issue of disability, and the costs of overcoming disability to be a candidate, I think there may well be a case, and we are looking at this, whether there ought to be some specific fund (for) people with disabilities who want to overcome the problems and be a candidate."
The conference's final report is due to be published later this year.
20 October 2009
Recession hits jobs, but evidence still unclear on disabled people
Job opportunities for disabled people appear to have decreased over the last year because of the recession, according to a new survey.
The survey of social services departments in 54 English local authorities found that 29 of them said there was evidence of fewer opportunities for paid or supported employment for disabled people because of the recession.
And 25 of those 29 said the situation had worsened over the last six months, while none of them said it had improved.
Despite the findings, the TUC said there was no clear evidence that the situation was worse for unemployed disabled people than it was for those who were not disabled.
Three months ago, a TUC report concluded that the recession had not hit disabled people's job prospects harder than those of non-disabled people.
The new survey was conducted by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) on the eve of the national children and adult services conference in Harrogate. A third of ADASS members took part.
The survey also found that four fifths of the councils said there was evidence of an increased demand for welfare advice services due to the recession.
Of those that said it had increased, more than 90 per cent said demand had also risen over the last six months.
But only nine of the councils said their adult social care budget had been reduced by more than expected because of the recession.
In the wake of the survey, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said job prospects were "getting worse for everyone".
He said indicators were "mixed" and there was "no clear evidence that things are currently getting tougher for disabled people than they are for non-disabled people".
But he added: "As the economy starts to recover, the risk is that without support it will take unemployed people longer to find work, and the longer someone is unemployed, so the harder it becomes for them to break back into the labour market."
20 October 2009
Government move holds out hope on extradition for disabled hacker
The government has given the first sign that it could reconsider its decision to extradite disabled computer hacker Gary McKinnon to the United States.
McKinnon, who has Asperger's syndrome, has been refused permission to appeal to Britain's new supreme court.
But home secretary Alan Johnson has told McKinnon's legal team that he has suspended the 14-day deadline for them to apply to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) while he considers new evidence they have submitted.
On 12 October, McKinnon's lawyers sent the Home Office a lengthy submission containing detailed evidence that aims to show the risk to his mental health if he is extradited.
His lawyers would normally have 14 days to apply for an ECHR hearing, but the Home Office has suspended that deadline while it considers the new evidence.
McKinnon's only hopes of avoiding extradition are to appeal to the ECHR or to persuade Johnson to intervene in the case.
A Home Office spokesman said: "Once the high court rejected his application (to appeal to the supreme court) a 14-day window of opportunity begins, during which he can appeal to the ECHR.
"What has happened now is we are considering that submission from his lawyers and the 14-day period has not yet begun."
McKinnon, from Wood Green, north London, faces a trial for allegedly hacking into US defense department computer systems, and a possible sentence of 60 years in prison if convicted in the US.
His legal team have argued that he should be prosecuted in the UK, and that the extradition would breach his human rights due to its probable effect on his mental health.
19 October 2009
Government signals improvements to training bill
The government has pledged to make key improvements to its training and education bill, to make it easier for disabled students to join a basic apprenticeship scheme.
The promise came as discussion of the apprenticeships, skills, children and learning bill resumed at the committee stage in the House of Lords.
The Alliance for Inclusive Education (ALLFIE), a campaigning and information-sharing network led by disabled people, has been calling for more flexible entry requirements to the apprenticeships entitlement.
The bill currently says that all suitably qualified young people would be entitled to a basic "level two" apprenticeship place.
But ALLFIE says the requirement to have five GCSEs in order to secure this entitlement discriminates against many young disabled people, such as those with learning difficulties.
Lord Young, the junior business, innovation and skills minister, told fellow peers that the government would bring forward amendments at the next stage of the bill to provide more flexible entry requirements for young people with learning difficulties.
Simone Aspis, ALLFIE's campaigns and policy coordinator, welcomed the announcement and said: "It is really positive that the government has acknowledged that there is a need to have greater flexibility in terms of assessing young disabled people's entitlement to an apprenticeship scheme."
But she said the "proof of the pudding is in the eating" and that ALLFIE was "looking forward to working with the government" on the amendments to ensure they provided the necessary flexibility.
She added: "We think the apprenticeship scheme is a really good opportunity to promote disabled young people's inclusion in mainstream employment and education environments.
"It offers the chance for disabled and non-disabled young people to have positive experiences of learning and working together throughout their lives."
Before discussion of the bill resumed after the summer recess, ALLFIE had helped organised a visit for Lord Young to a training scheme in Hertfordshire.
During the visit to Hertfordshire Personal Assistant Support Service, he heard from disabled young apprentices about the barriers that disabled young people face in finding an apprenticeship placement.
At the age of 16, young disabled people are twice as likely not to be in education, employment or training as their non-disabled peers (15 per cent compared to 7.1 per cent).
The bill has now finished its committee stage and is due to begin its report stage in the Lords on 2 November.
ALLFIE still hopes to persuade the government to make further changes to the bill around inclusion and access before it becomes law.
19 October 2009
News Stories from week-ending 15th October 2009
Concerns over first government work test figures
The first official figures showing how the government's work capability assessment (WCA) is working have revealed only a small proportion of those applying for out-of-work disability benefits are "passing" the strict new test.
Of about 175,000 people whose claims were completed between October 2008 and February this year, only about 32,000 - 18 per cent - were placed on the new employment and support allowance (ESA).
Of the 32,000, just under a third were placed in the support group, for those who do not have to engage in work-related activity.
But about 69,000 of the claimants were pronounced "fit for work" and ineligible for ESA, while 74,000 stopped claiming before their assessment was finished.
The assessments - carried out by the government contractor ATOS Healthcare - are supposed to test whether someone requires personalised support to find work and so qualifies for ESA, which has replaced incapacity benefit (IB) for new claimants.
The government is to start rolling out the WCA to existing IB claimants next year.
The new figures also reveal that, by the end of August, 4,900 claimants had completed appeals against a decision that they were "fit for work" and ineligible for ESA, but only 1,500 were successful.
Neil Coyle, director of policy for the disability poverty charity Disability Alliance, said the WCA was "too rigid" and often failed to reflect disabled people's daily lives.
He said the figures suggest the government's welfare reforms could fail to secure work for many disabled people, which would be "deeply disappointing".
He added: "The concern is that too many disabled people are not getting access to ESA and are put on jobseeker's allowance (JSA), where they do not get tailored support.
"Meanwhile, there are less jobs, more competition for work and rampant employer discrimination, particularly against those with mental health problems."
He said this risks alienating disabled people and forcing them into poverty, as JSA is paid at a lower rate than ESA (up to £64.30 a week for JSA, compared with up to £89.80 for ESA).
Meanwhile, the government has announced a new Fit for Work scheme, which will encourage employers, GPs and councils to help people who become ill at work to manage their condition and stay in their job so they do not end up on benefits.
Ten pilot schemes will encourage local partnerships to pool funds to develop new services, bringing together support in areas such as health, employment, skills, housing and debt advice.
15 October 2009
MPs call for improved autism services
Many adults with autism are being left to "fend for themselves" because of a lack of appropriate services, according to a report by a group of MPs.
The report by the Commons public accounts committee, Supporting People with Autism through Adulthood, has added weight to demands for wide-ranging improvements to services.
It follows a report of the same name in June by the National Audit Office (NAO) and repeats many of its recommendations.
And it comes as a government-backed autism bill begins its Lords committee stage, while the first national adult autism strategy for England is due early next year.
Edward Leigh MP, chairman of the committee, said the autism strategy was an "excellent opportunity" for the government to describe how it would implement the committee's recommendations and those of the NAO.
Leigh said the transition from children's to adult services was "critical" for people with autism but was currently "like being cast adrift".
He blamed this on a "chronic lack of information", as well as poor planning, data sharing and coordination between health, social care, education and employment services.
Among other recommendations, the committee calls for targeted support for those adults with autism who do not have learning difficulties, and improved autism awareness among staff in health, social care, benefits and employment services.
The committee also says more must be done to increase the number of people with autism in work and to improve supported employment provision.
Mark Lever, chief executive of the National Autistic Society, said: "Adults with autism have been telling us for some time that they are frequently misunderstood and discriminated against, whether it's trying to get a diagnosis, a job or access to health and social care.
"Thousands are experiencing serious mental health difficulties as a result and just 15 per cent are currently in full-time paid employment."
He said the government's autism strategy was "one of the best opportunities we have ever had to tackle the routine inequality" experienced by people with autism.
A Department of Health spokeswoman said the report came at a "crucial time", with the autism strategy, the autism bill, and a government commitment to spend £600,000 researching the prevalence of autism among adults.
She said: "Together this will help create a new approach which directly reflects the needs of people with autism and their families and will drive up standards of services."
A formal government response to the recommendations will follow "in due course".
15 October 2009
British man with bipolar disorder faces execution in China
Campaigners are desperately attempting to save a British man with bipolar disorder from execution in China.
Akmal Shaikh was arrested in 2007 at an airport in northwest China and allegedly found to be carrying four kilogrammes of heroin.
His final appeal is due to be heard by the People's Supreme Court, and could take place within weeks, or even days.
If it fails, he faces immediate execution by a single bullet to the back of his head.
The UK charity Reprieve, which supports prisoners facing the death penalty, says Shaikh was taken advantage of by drug smugglers who knew about his mental health condition.
The Foreign Office said it was "greatly concerned to hear that the death sentence has been maintained".
The prime minister, Gordon Brown, is expected to raise the case during an official visit to London by a Chinese deputy foreign minister next week.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said the prime minister had taken a "personal interest" in the case and had raised it "several times" with the Chinese leadership.
It is believed that he has also raised the issue of Shaikh's mental health.
Reprieve has written urgently to China's foreign minister, enclosing evidence it has already sent to the Chinese authorities that demonstrates Shaikh's mental health condition.
Shaikh, originally from Kentish Town, north London, apparently moved to Poland from Britain to set up an airline, even though he had no money, and then flew to Kyrgyzstan after meeting a man who promised to help him become a pop star.
Once in Kyrgyzstan his passport and money were taken, and he was later told to fly to China for a job singing in a nightclub.
He was given a bag to take on the flight and was arrested on landing in China.
The mental health charity Mind is supporting Reprieve's campaign.
Paul Farmer, Mind's chief executive, said: "Bipolar disorder can cause people to behave erratically and do things that they would not usually do.
"This is a tragic set of circumstances and it is unjust that he faces paying such a high penalty for his illness.
"We urge the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to do everything they can to intervene on Akmal's behalf."
The actor, writer and TV presenter Stephen Fry, who has bipolar disorder, has also backed the campaign and described the sentence as "manifestly unfair".
14 October 2009
Jobs and benefits system 'condemns people with autism to poverty'
A deeply flawed employment and benefits system is condemning tens of thousands of adults with autism to financial hardship, according to a new report.
A third of adults with autism are surviving with no job and no benefits, says the National Autistic Society (NAS).
Launching its Don't Write Me Off campaign and report, the charity said there was a "woeful lack of understanding" of autism among employment and benefits advisers with the government's Jobcentre Plus, and a "dearth" of specialist employment services.
There are believed to be more than 300,000 adults with autism of working age in the UK, and research suggests that just 15 per cent have full-time paid jobs.
Mark Lever, NAS chief executive, said: "People with autism say their experiences of the employment and benefits system are marred by anxiety, confusion, delays and discrimination."
He said it was "scandalous" that so many were "consigned to poverty by a complex and counter-productive benefits system", with many facing unnecessary delays in payment or being denied essential benefits.
An NAS survey of more than 320 people with autism found almost four-fifths of those on incapacity benefit (IB) want to work.
More than four-fifths need some help to apply for benefits, but NAS believes few are made aware of their right to an advocate.
The report also reveals serious problems with the new employment and support allowance (ESA) - which has replaced IB for new claimants - with complex forms and poor medical assessments and job-seeking support.
Paula Wharmby, who has autism, said her ESA application was "completely inflexible and intimidating" and no-one she dealt with "knew anything about autism". She was only granted ESA after a tribunal appeal.
The report's recommendations include: a national employment strategy for people with autism; the government to scrap the need to provide a sick note when applying for ESA; and a new network of autism coordinators across Jobcentre Plus.
NAS also wants people with autism to be told they have the right to an advocate when applying for ESA; and improved understanding of autism among Jobcentre Plus staff and doctors carrying out medical assessments.
The charity called on the government to include the recommendations in its adult autism strategy for England, due next spring, and also wants improvements from the three devolved governments.
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said it was "determined to provide the best support possible" to help adults with autism into work, and was working with the NAS and other organisations to ensure the right help was available.
13 October 2009
Government adviser 'wary' of legal right to independent living
A senior government adviser has dismissed calls for rights-based laws that would give disabled people a nationally-guaranteed entitlement to independent living support.
Dr Steve Feast, a senior health and wellbeing adviser in the Department of Health, said he would be "very wary" of writing such legislation and then waiting for the results to "trickle down" to disabled people.
Speaking in a debate on independent living organised by the disability charity RADAR following its agm, Feast said he was a "strong believer" in giving council leaders discretion in how they spend their money.
And he said he believed there should be a move away from "big government" and towards flexibility, local innovation, "empowered individuals" and a "needs-based approach".
But Caroline Ellis, joint deputy chief executive of RADAR, said legislation was needed so that "your ability to live a dignified life...to raise your kids, to love, learn, live and work" was not dependent on your local council.
She said such rights were "far too important to leave to local discretion" and that she had been "really struck with the number of people I have met recently who have had their care packages slashed".
She added: "We are fed up to the back teeth of postcode lotteries and we are certainly fed up of professionals telling us what we need and how we should be living our lives."
Disability consultant Haqeeq Bostan said disabled people"s organisations need to show they can deliver services themselves, with ring-fenced funding from central government.
Otherwise, he warned, "we will face fundamental cuts in the services we receive, in the support we have and the means to make the choices we want to".
The motion they were debating stated that the government"s "vision for social care and support" would only be delivered through "rights-based legislation extending national entitlements" and that relying on local decision-making was a "recipe for disaster".
Only Feast and Hackney councillor Nargis Khan - who also spoke opposing the motion - voted against it, while 25 people voted in favour and there were eight abstensions.
The debate took place just four days before Lord Ashley's independent living bill - a private members' bill that would give disabled people a legal right to independent living - was due to receive its second reading in the Commons.
12 October 2009
Minister avoids answering questions on threat to DLA
Care services minister Phil Hope has refused to say which disability benefits the government is considering scrapping and "integrating" into local authority social services budgets.
The refusal came as he responded to a series of questions put to him about the care and support green paper by members of the disability poverty charity Disability Alliance.
Hope was asked which disability benefits, apart from attendance allowance (AA), the government was considering integrating into councils' social care budgets.
AA was mentioned explicitly in the green paper but there have been widespread concerns that the government also intends to scrap disability living allowance (DLA).
But in answer to the question, Hope said: "We are working on answers to all of the Disability Alliance's questions and apologies we haven't been able to so far." He said he would provide an answer to the question "soon".
Disability Alliance said in its October members' newsletter that it was "very frustrating" that over halfway through the green paper consultation, which ends on 13 November, Hope was unable to clarify which benefits were being considered for "integration".
Hope was also unable to respond to a question that asked for reassurance for disabled people worried that using the care component of DLA to fund social care would be a threat to their "freedom of choice and independence".
In answer to another question, the minister said the social care and disability benefits systems had developed "in isolation from each other" and so were fragmented and "complex to understand, access and navigate".
He added: "This can lead to inconsistent and unfair outcomes. Bringing them together helps tackle this, under a new and better National Care Service."
Hope also provided further evidence that the government favours moving further towards a means-tested system of support, at least for those with "lower" needs.
He was asked how the government would ensure that eligibility criteria and means-testing would not prevent those who currently qualify for disability benefits from accessing care and support.
He replied: "In the future, everyone with high needs, and people who are on low incomes with lower levels of need who do not currently qualify for social care services, will be entitled to funding from the new care and support system."
12 October 2009
Disabled hacker fails in latest bid to avoid extradition
Disabled computer hacker Gary McKinnon has failed in his final UK legal bid to avoid extradition to the USA.
McKinnon, who has Asperger's syndrome, has been refused permission to appeal to Britain's new supreme court.
His lawyers had wanted to appeal against the high court's refusal to grant a judicial review of the decision by Jacqui Smith, the former home secretary, to extradite him.
But the high court decided his case did not raise any legal issues of "general public importance".
His only hopes now are finally to persuade Smith's successor, Alan Johnson, to intervene in the case, or to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
Johnson has given McKinnon's legal team a fortnight to make further "representations".
McKinnon, from Wood Green, north London, faces a trial for allegedly hacking into US defense department computer systems, and a possible sentence of 60 years in prison if convicted in the US.
His legal team have argued that he should be prosecuted in the UK, and that the extradition would breach his human rights due to its probable effect on his mental health.
After the latest ruling, his mother, Janis Sharp, delivered a furious attack on Gordon Brown.
She drew parallels with the prime minister's apology last month for the 1954 suicide of the computer scientist Alan Turing, who is also believed to have had Asperger's.
She said: "So, Gordon, if you apologised for Alan Turing's suicide, are you just going to wait until Gary commits suicide and apologise for his?"
McKinnon's solicitor, Karen Todner, accused the UK and US governments of "the wholesale destruction and bullying of a small individual".
She said the effect on McKinnon of the continuing legal proceedings and the threat of extradition had been "devastating".
She said: "He is a highly vulnerable man in a very fragile state and this is a huge blow to him and his family."
Mark Lever, chief executive of the National Autistic Society, which has supported McKinnon's campaign, said: "we are very disappointed by today's decision and feel hugely sympathetic towards Gary and his family, who have been living under extreme stress for some time."
He said that people with Asperger's are often "much more vulnerable than appearances would suggest" and can be "highly susceptible to additional mental health problems".
12 October 2009
Fit notes 'need explicit reference to reasonable adjustments'
The government is likely to ignore calls for an explicit reference to the need for reasonable adjustments in the workplace to be included on its new electronic "fit note".
The government hopes the fit note will be more flexible than the current "sick note" and will allow GPs to advise those with health conditions when it would be appropriate for them to return to work.
Employers will then be able to discuss with their employee any possible changes to the workplace or job that would allow them to resume work.
The call for an explicit statement about reasonable adjustments on the form was made at a conference organised by Surrey Supported Employment and attended by Dame Carol Black, the government's national director for health and work.
The fit note was one of the measures announced by the government in response to Dame Carol's 2008 report into the health of Britain's working age population.
Adam Lotun, director of the consultancy Workplace Disability Adjustments, suggested to Dame Carol that the fit note should explicitly state that the individual could return to work if the appropriate reasonable adjustments were made.
But a spokesman for Dame Carol's health, work and wellbeing office said it was "unlikely" that something as specific as workplace adjustments would be included on the fit note form, in order to keep it "simple and user-friendly".
But he said the information would probably be included in the associated guidance for GPs and employers.
He said Dame Carol "would say that implementing things like workplace disability adjustments" was "really important" and there should be space on the form for a GP to mention such a need.
But he said feedback from a consultation on the fit note was still being processed.
Lotun welcomed the confirmation that reasonable adjustments would probably be mentioned in the guidance, but said: "It has not gone quite far enough. They have listened but they have not understood."
He said he would not want to rely on a busy doctor to include a mention of reasonable adjustments on the form.
He added: "It is necessary to have this reference explicitly on the form so the employer understands that they must make all possible reasonable adjustments and implement them in order for the individual to return to their duties."
The fit notes are due to be rolled out across Britain next spring.
9 October 2009