John Pring's Disability News Roundup

Another week of news from the tireless John Pring

• The equality watchdog has ignored repeated requests from its own disability committee to investigate the combined impact of the government’s cuts to support and services on disabled people, Disability News Service can reveal.
• Serious questions have been raised over why the equality watchdog has decided to scrap the disabled-led committee that makes some of its most important decisions on disability equality, ignoring the advice of an independent reviewer.
• The government has held a huge conference to set out its “non-confrontational” approach to persuading business to employ more disabled people.
• The disabled MP who caused outrage across the disability movement by branding anti-cuts activists and campaigners “extremists” has privately apologised to some of those he insulted.
• The public bodies responsible for a series of serious failures and a six-year delay in securing justice for disabled people abused at a Doncaster day centre, have refused to order an independent review into the scandal.
• The government has decided to scrap its high-level advice body of disabled people, Equality 2025, following an independent review.
• The government has opened up its Access to Work scheme to new groups of young disabled people, just days before it is due to release statistics on how many people used the programme last year.
• Local authorities in London have questioned why the government’s Work Programme is finding jobs for so few disabled people, when council-run schemes are much more successful.