Author: Neil Armstrong

A local authority has become the second in London to set up an independent, user-led commission to investigate the barriers faced by disabled residents.

Lewisham Disabled People’s Commission (LDPC) will be led by disabled people and will examine organisational, attitudinal and physical barriers faced by disabled adults in the borough, and how Lewisham council and others can address those barriers.

They will review key research and information and hear from local disabled residents and users of local services before producing a final report for the council, with recommendations for change.

The commission was set up after an election manifesto commitment by Lewisham Labour council candidates and will be chaired by disabled writer, poet and campaigner Jamie Hale, with its report expected in about a year’s time.

Hale said one of the key issues the commission would examine was the impact of social care charges.

He said: “I know from personal experience that when you live on benefits the adult social care charges can be enormous and wipe out most of your disposable income.

“While I no longer face these, I remain passionate about campaigning to abolish them.”

He said he had made it clear to the council that the direction and conclusions would be set independently by the commission and that it “will not be operating in the pocket of the council”.

The council has pledged to take the commission’s recommendations seriously but has not promised to implement them.

Hale said that likely recommendations such as abolishing care charges could have “significant budgetary implications”, but he said he hoped the council would implement many of the recommendations immediately, and “do the long term work necessary to implement the others”.

Hale said the commission was needed because of the impact of austerity on disabled people.

He said: “As [the work of Disability News Service] has noted, cuts to public services have disproportionately affected disabled people, and this is a situation that requires redress.

“Both the decisions taken around the cuts to be made and the cuts themselves need analysis, and the commission will be looking at the impact of this on disabled people, and what can be done differently in future.”

Lewisham no longer has a disabled people’s user-led organisation, following the closure of Lewisham Disability Coalition, which he said had left disabled people without an organisation working between them and the council, and without their own advice service.

Hale said: “One of the key things we will consider is how the council should relate to disabled people in an ongoing fashion to ensure disabled people are at the heart of making decisions that will affect us.”

Last year, the user-led Hammersmith and Fulham Disabled People’s Commission produced a pioneering report on how to remove the barriers disabled people faced in their London borough by embedding a culture of genuine co-production within the council.

Now LDPC is hoping to follow in its path.

Hale said the work and report in Hammersmith and Fulham had helped him understand the possibilities of such a commission.

He said: “We hope to report back both on specific changes the council should make to decisions and to decision-making processes, and the focus on the Hammersmith and Fulham commission on co-production has been interesting.

“I hope to meet with members of that commission to learn about their experience of their work, and what impact their recommendation of coproduction has really had – whether it was as effective as they had hoped.”

He said he believed an emphasis on a culture of co-production within the council would also be important in Lewisham.

He said: “I think we will make quickly achievable recommendations, recommendations that are aspirational and shape changes we would like to see in the long term, like abolishing care charges, and recommendations to change how decisions are made within the council, and it is there that coproduction – when done properly instead of as a token or to rubber-stamp harmful decisions – is likely to be a focus of our work.”

Another member of the commission, Richard Amm, told DNS: “The commission is important because it is an opportunity for actual disabled people to have their say about how local government affects our daily lives.”

He said he hoped its work would “make things fairer and more accessible” for disabled people in the borough.

Four other disabled people have already been appointed to the commission, which is seeking to recruit up to six more disabled local residents who have a commitment to promoting the rights of disabled people*.

Hale said: “I’m really keen to reach out to people who might not have realised they can be part of something like this and encourage them to apply.

“With a broad and diverse coalition of commissioners I believe we can make some real changes in the borough.”

Cllr Jonathan Slater, Lewisham council’s cabinet member for the community sector, said: “Lewisham is a welcoming borough and we are determined that it is accessible and open to all.

“Jamie’s experience means he is well-placed to lead Lewisham’s Disabled People’s Commission and I am very excited about the positive difference it will make to our residents with disabilities.”

*The closing date for applications is 6 January 2020

11 December 2019. News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

 

 

The government’s flagship disability employment scheme has managed to sign up less than 80 private sector employers in more than three years to its highest accreditation level, new research has found.

When Disability Confident was relaunched in 2016, the scheme allowed employers to sign up even if they do not employ any disabled people at all.

And employers can reach the first two levels simply by assessing themselves on their own performance, after which DWP will send them a badge and a certificate that they can use to promote their “disability confidence”.

It is only if they want to become a Disability Confident Leader – the highest of the scheme’s three levels – that their self-assessment must be “validated” by another organisation.

DWP itself was declared a Disability Confident leader on 4 November 2016, just days before the UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities found it guilty of “grave” and “systematic” violations of disabled people’s rights under the UN disability convention.

Now research by Professor Nick Bacon, of Cass Business School, and Professor Kim Hoque, of Warwick Business School, has revealed that less than 80 of the employers that have achieved the level of Disability Confident Leader (level three of the three-tiered scheme) are private sector employers.

The remaining 190 or so level three employers are voluntary or public sector organisations, many of them disability charities.

Of all 15,000-plus Disability Confident members, including those on levels one and two, less than half are private sector employers.

Bacon and Hoque point out that this shows only a tiny proportion of the 1.39 million UK private sector businesses that are not sole traders have signed up to the scheme, which is probably as low as 0.5 per cent of them.

They say the figures show that the government’s key “business case” argument for encouraging employers to sign up to Disability Confident – that it provides a wider talent pool, and allows them to recruit hardworking and committed staff, and enhance their reputation – appears to have had a “limited” impact.

Hoque and Bacon called on the government to make it mandatory for Disability Confident Leaders to report on how many of their staff are disabled people, and for this to be extended to level two members [those given the status of Disability Confident Employers].

Last month, Disability News Service reported that government plans to introduce mandatory reporting for Disability Confident Leaders was scrapped just days after it was announced.

The two academics also say Disability Confident Leaders should have to ensure that the percentage of disabled people within their workforce is substantially above the UK average, while Disability Confident Employers should have to ensure the proportion of staff that is disabled is at least equivalent to the UK average.

And they say the government should remove level two and three status from employers who persistently employ a higher than average proportion of disabled people at lower pay rates, unless they can provide a valid reason for doing so.

Bacon and Hoque say there is currently no evidence that level two and three Disability Confident members are any more likely to hire and retain disabled people than other employers, which means the scheme “rewards employers for public declarations of intention rather than for delivering outcomes”.

David Gillon, a prominent disabled critic of Disability Confident since its original launch in July 2013, said the study was a “really welcome piece of research”.

He said the findings were “a huge condemnation of Disability Confident, not just for the obvious reason, but because any professionally designed programme should have had this kind of benchmarking built in from the beginning.

“You don’t know if initiatives are working unless you collect data at the start, and then again later, in order to tell you, and Disability Confident never proposed collecting the needed data.

“The data on the devastatingly poor take-up of Disability Confident among private sector firms is something that has been needed, but hardly something that can be welcomed.

“And in some of these companies, such as recruitment agencies, there are non-disability related reasons that may have led to the take-up.”

He added: “Perhaps most devastating for Disability Confident is this: after three years, we are still counting private sector Disability Confident Leaders in single figures in all but one business sector (which has 10).

“And Disability Confident Leader is awarded for a level of disability access to work that is arguably less than that required by law.”

Sue Bott, head of policy and research at Disability Rights UK, which has also been shown the report, said it “makes interesting reading but comes as no surprise.

“The problem with the Disability Confident programme all along has been that it lacks teeth.

“We will be raising this with the new government after the general election.”

A DWP spokesperson was unable to comment on the new research because of the general election campaign.

5 December 2019. News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

 

 

Many universities are still struggling with the idea of working closely with disabled people to co-produce disability research projects, according to a new study.

The report, the latest to come from the user-led Disability Research on Independent Living and Learning (DRILL) programme, says the culture of universities and financial constraints mean that the full value of involving disabled people in the design and delivery of projects as “peer researchers” was not being realised.

The Developing Future Strategies study calls on academics to “relinquish some of their power”, take more risks and experiment with new ways of working.

It found that universities often pay peer researchers at minimum wage rates, on the assumption that they are “unskilled and easily replaced”, which could “undermine the ethos of co-production”.

But the report concludes that co-production in disability studies research is “crucial to including the contributions of disabled people”, with peer researchers playing a “particularly important role in recruitment, fieldwork and research dissemination”.

The study also found that many disabled people involved as peer researchers refused to be paid for their work, because of fear of losing their benefits when the project ends, and sometimes request anonymity through fear that the Department for Work and Pensions will see their involvement as evidence that they are able to hold down full-time jobs.

Researchers on the project carried out interviews and focus groups with peer and academic researchers involved in six other DRILL projects.

The study found that most peer researchers were involved in all aspects of the research process, although only to a limited extent at the funding application stage, partly because of a lack of resources.

All the peer reviewers interviewed had received in-depth training and support, and in one project they had gained a formal qualification in research methods, which opened up new career prospects.

Of the 15 peer researchers interviewed for the project, at least five have found paid employment as a direct result of their research work.

Many of the peer researchers also described how their confidence had increased through the research, with one saying: “There is such a sense of feeling valued and feeling heard being able to be part of research like this.”

But the peer researchers who were interviewed also said they believed their contribution was under-valued by universities, and some believed that the title of “peer researcher” reinforced traditional “unequal hierarchies” that prevented genuine co-production.

The report says that providing training and support for peer researchers can increase the cost of research projects.

It also warns that academics believe co-produced projects involved greater risks to their own reputations and those of their institutions.

Jody Mellor, DRILL programme officer for Wales said: “The DRILL programme has been characterised by user leadership and involvement to develop genuinely co-produced reports that should shape disability policy for years to come.

“This project highlights how such an approach improves the quality of research projects and benefits the disabled people who work on them.

“We’ve worked closely with many universities as part of the programme. It’s sometimes been a struggle to get them to engage with the idea of co-production.”

The study recommends that work is done to define exactly what is meant by “co-production”, to build the capacity of disabled people’s organisations to carry out research, and to create a culture in which peer researchers have “equal roles” in research projects.

It also calls on funders to make co-production an “essential requirement” for all disability research projects, and for universities to review policies and practices that can obstruct disabled people’s involvement.

The study also concludes that funders that wish to support “genuine co-production” should provide funding that allows peer researchers to be involved in the planning and study design stages of a project.

The study was carried out by Disability Wales, members of Wales School for Social Care Research, HOLI Coproduction Research in Wales and the Wales DRILL national advisory group.

The report is the latest piece of research to come out of the five-year, £5 million DRILL research programme, which is funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, and delivered by DR UK, Disability Action (in Northern Ireland), Inclusion Scotland and Disability Wales.

It is believed to be the world’s first major research programme led by disabled people, and it should eventually fund about 40 pieces of research and pilot projects across the UK.

28 November 2019. News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

 

 

A “staggering” and “horrific” proportion of allegations of disability benefit fraud that are made by the public are eventually found to be completely false, the government’s own figures have revealed.

The response by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to a freedom of information (FoI) request submitted by disabled activists has shown that nearly nine in 10 allegations of fraudulent claims passed to the department prove to be unfounded.

The FoI request was submitted by the Berkshire branch of Disabled People Against Cuts (Berkshire DPAC), which had grown increasingly concerned by years of government rhetoric that has stated or implied that disability benefit fraud was a huge problem and even a significant cause of austerity.

There has been mounting concern over those years that disabled people are being subjected to disability hate crimes as a result of this so-called benefit scrounger rhetoric, with disabled campaigners warning that such language has added to the “hostile environment” facing disabled people.

But the DWP figures show that nearly all reports of benefit fraud to DWP’s hotline and website have proved to be false and unfounded.

In both 2017-18 and 2018-19, the percentage of cases of alleged disability benefit fraud that were found to be “non-fraudulent” after examination by DWP was 89 per cent.

The figures relate to allegations made about claimants of both employment and support allowance (ESA) and personal independence payment (PIP).

The DWP response says: “All allegations of fraud received are checked to see if the allegation can be substantiated.

“In cases where there is no evidence of wrong doing, the referral will be closed at the earliest possible stage.”

A spokesperson for Berkshire DPAC said: “We asked this FoI after reading yet another horrendous story about the impact on a disabled woman of being hauled through an investigation because of a ridiculous allegation.

“It seems to us that going through the thoroughly discredited ESA and PIP assessments and sometimes having to wait months and months to go to tribunal, is bad enough, even if you win.

“We know that it is destroying people’s physical and mental health.

“If, on top of that stress, you then find yourself under investigation, because someone has made an allegation that you are claiming your benefit fraudulently, how are you expected to cope mentally?

“It worries us that the string of ministers responsible for the DWP and the media have encouraged the general public (for years) to think of us as scroungers and cheats at worst and as a burden on society at best.

“These stereotypes laid the groundwork for people who are jealous of us for receiving benefits (and we know this is quite widespread) and those who frankly just enjoy making trouble, to feel empowered by the chance to ring the DWP and make false allegations.

“It must be massively more worrying for people with invisible impairments, than for those of us with visible ones, but even we are not immune to being questioned by members of the public as to why, for example, we have a blue badge.

“Whilst the FoI response suggests that the DWP doesn’t automatically launch a full-scale investigation [when it receives an allegation of fraud], that will do little to reassure most disabled people, already feeling under threat from a profoundly unfair system.”

DWP says in its FoI response that not all allegations are dealt with by a fraud investigator, with some directed to the “compliance teams” that review people’s benefits and make any necessary corrections.

A DWP spokesperson refused to add to the FoI response.

He refused to say if DWP accepted that the figures showed that a hostile environment whipped up by ministers, other politicians and the media had led to an atmosphere in which a flood of false allegations of fraud had been made against disabled people.

He also refused to say if DWP was concerned about the figures and their effect on disabled people.

And he refused to say what action DWP would take to reduce the number of false allegations.

On Monday this week, at the launch of Disability History Month (see separate story), its coordinator, Richard Rieser, said disability hate crime “has been fuelled by ministerial-encouraged press saying that everybody out there is a scrounger, programmes like Benefits Street, and all the rest of it.

“The Sun ran its hotline to find how many ‘scroungers’ you could find, and this has led to a huge increase in hate crime on our streets against disabled people.”

The hostile rhetoric stretches back to the New Labour government, with ministers such as work and pensions secretary Peter Hain vowing in November 2007 to “rip up sicknote Britain”.

In 2010, Tory work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith told the Sun newspaper that he was “appalled” at how easy it had been in the past for people to claim incapacity benefit and cheat the system, and suggested that a large proportion of incapacity benefit claimants were cheats.

He added: “We don’t want to talk about scroungers in the future, we want to talk about British people being renowned the world over for working hard.”

The government’s efforts to promote the false idea that fraud was widespread was taken up by the mainstream media, with inaccurate stories in papers such as the Daily Mail (“Time’s up for the shirking classes: Just one in 14 incapacity claimants is unfit to work under new, tougher tests”) and the Daily Express (“Sick benefits: 75 per cent are faking”).

At the time, government figures estimated that the overpayment of incapacity benefit due to fraud was just £20 million a year, or 0.3 per cent of spending.

Senior New Labour figures also helped to add to this stigmatisation after the 2010 election.

The then Labour leader Ed Miliband claimed that some incapacity benefit claimants were “just not taking responsibility” and were “shirking their duties” and said that he understood why other people – those who “act responsibly” – were “getting angry”.

21 November 2019. News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com