Tag Archives: disability benefit

Communities, Disability, Homelessness

Useful links to August 30th: living costs crisis; intern death; DWP zero hours; modern workers

These are some welfare links we found interesting during the second two weeks of August.

Disability

Isle of Wight’s cuts to care services ruled unlawful

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A decision to restrict eligibility to community care services on the Isle of Wight has been overturned by a high court judge and considered unlawful – a small victory to the disabled under the council’s care.

The Guardian reports:

“Previously, the council had allocated care assistance to adults assessed to be at critical or substantial risk, the top two levels of a four-tier system. But in February the authority, facing a £33m funding gap after central government cuts, voted to restrict this to those at critical risk. The council argued that the high percentage of retired people on the Isle of Wight made it particularly vulnerable to social care costs.”

The legal action was brought on by the lawyers of two 32-year disabled men, both severely autistic and dependent on the council’s care services.

The council agreed to comply with the ruling and said they would not be appealing the court’s ruling.

The Isle of Wight is not the first local authority whose attempt to cut disability services has been considered unlawful. In May 2011 Birmingham City Council was also found to have failed to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act.

data, Disability

Cuts to disability benefits: how is your local authority coping?

As part of its austerity measures, the British government is making cuts on several welfare benefits. One of the affected groups is Britain’s 10 million disable people (figures provided by the Disabled Living Foundation).

How serious is the situation in your local area?

The independent think tank Demos, has mapped out their research data in the area, which allows us to check how well (or badly) each local authority in England and Wales is coping with the budget cuts to disability services. They were ranked as very good, good, well, ok, poor, bad or very bad.

The methodology Demos used to analyse the data and produce a nationwide picture is explained here.

Testimonials compiled on the False Economy site by people affected by the government cuts try to give voice to the current crisis, but more needs to be done.

The Where’s the Benefit campaign put out a call for disabled people in the UK to join their local “Occupy” groups  for a couple of hours every Sunday afternoon and raise awareness on how the welfare reform bill and its proposed cuts are affecting them. WtB also compiled, in a podcast, stories about  the role the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) plays in a disabled person’s life (#myDLA hashtag on Twitter).

In our previous post, Paul Bradshaw wrote about the Department of Work and Pensions’ press release claiming disability benefits were paid “without checks”. The press release triggered several media articles, but published DWP figures were interpreted widely differently on The Daily Mail and The Telegraph. The discrepancy was unpicked on the Left Foot Forward blog.

Have you or a loved one, been affected by cuts to disability benefits? Does the Demos map inspire you to collaborate with an investigation in this area? Would you like to ask Help Me Investigate Welfare to investigate any specific issues/facts/figures? Do you know someone who is already doing that and would like to introduce us to them? Are you good with video cameras and would like to get some live interviews with disabled people joining Occupy on Sundays?

You do not need to be a journalist or researcher in order to help; we will give you guidance and tips. Leave a comment, get in touch.

data, links

Links: Disability benefits paid “without checks”? The statistics debunked

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Ruth Barnett writes about the Department for Work and Pensions press release with a particularly nastily-spun statistic (bold in original):

“The vast majority (94%) of new claimants got the benefit without having any face-to-face assessment of their needs.”

Ruth writes:

“The rest of the release paints a more complex (or to be less diplomatic, potentially contradictory) picture.

 

“It seems 42% of claimants had a statement from their GP verifying their medical condition; a further 36% submitted other sources of evidence, a category that can include reports by social workers or occupational therapists.

 

“Surely a GP is a “healthcare professional”? And surely all these trained staff will have met the claimant in person? Does this not count as a form of assessment? Apparently not.

 

“The DWP’s figures show 16% submitted a claim form alone.”

Ruth got a response from the DWP, who do not feel their statements were misleading. Those statements include a quote from Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith that “At the moment hundreds of millions of pounds are paid out in disability benefits to people who have simply filled out a form.”

She points out:

“The DWP figures show the cost of new claimants who really did just fill in the form last year was […] £30m.”

Also debunked and unpicked on Left Foot Forward.