Europe Calls on Governments to Protect Disabled Citizens

I reproduce this letter on behalf of the European Disability Forum. On first reading, I'm not sure our UK government can claim to meet any of these demands. Except No.3 of course, which appears to be a particular obsession.... 

Despite the rhetoric, cuts to Access to Work even call No.3 into question.

EU SUMMIT: OUR LETTER TO HEADS OF STATE: WE DON'T WANT TO BE EXCLUDED MORE THAN WE ALREADY ARE


To the Heads of State and Government of the European Union,

RE: IMPACT OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS ON PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

The European Disability Forum (EDF), the voice of 80 million persons with disabilities and their families in Europe, calls on all the Governments of the European Union to ensure that the needs of people with disabilities and their families are taken into account all the way through economic, political and social policies.

Austerity measures undertaken by governments in the European Union could undermine progress towards the realisation of the rights of persons with disabilities enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as well as the social targets of the Europe 2020 strategy and the European Disability Strategy 2010 – 2020. Poverty, social exclusion, discrimination, marginalisation, illiteracy and negative stereotypes of people with disabilities can be the sad legacy of the economic, social and political reforms if implemented without duly consideration of the rights of people with disabilities.

 

 

The EDF calls on the European Council and all the Governments of Europe to ensure that people with disabilities are not socially, economically or politically excluded. In order to make sure  that the rights of persons with disabilities are not undermined by current responses to the economic crisis, we must consider that: 

 

1. People with disabilities might freely move in European societies, live independently and included in society: no action restricting these capacities should be envisaged in any social protection reform. Personal assistance and other community support services should not be undermined by austerity measures.

2. Education of persons with disabilities will be respected and reforms in the education systems will not mean reduction in education support policies in mainstream education and should not lead to segregation to special schools.

3. The right to work and employment is fully respected: Measures for full inclusion in employment including reasonable accommodation and supported employment should not disappear from the national employment policies.

4. Access to health services for people with disabilities is not put into question and health services for people with disabilities do not consider their health as secondary in respect to non-disabled people.

5. That Social habilitation and rehabilitation is considered an investment for European societies ensuring that all capacities are collected and fully participate in the construction of Europe after the crisis. The quality of social services should remain a pre-condition for respecting the human rights of people with disabilities.

6. Adequate living standards and social protection are ensured. This will mean that no measures are taken that will have the effect of leading people with disabilities into poverty, social exclusion or reduction of his/her living income.

7. Freedom of expression and opinion and access to information is not restricted by reforms of public and private services.

8. Respect for family life is ensured by guaranteeing to all people with disabilities and their families adequate family policies. These policies should remain a priority.

9. Organisations representing people with disabilities should be consulted in regard to any action that could have an impact on the rights of people with disabilities.

10. Raising the awareness of the needs of persons with disabilities should take place in order to ensure that the portrayal of persons with disabilities in the media and other relevant stakeholders is done correctly and does not lead to social stigmatisation.

 

Yannis Vardakastanis
President of the European Disability Forum

Harrington 2 - The Sequel is Never as Good

Professor Harrington is the man charged with sorting out the incomprehensible mess that is ESA (Employment and Support Allowance)

Given a system that gets the decision wrong so often that up to 70% of appeals are successful, his work is fairly urgent. The government claim that 11,000 people a week are being assessed for ESA, yet those assessments have been scathingly criticised by the Citizens Advice Bureaux, a Work and Pensions Select Committee report, the government's own Statutory Social Security Advisory committee, almost every leading charity, campaigners and even the professor who helped to design ESA.

People are taking their own lives. So terrified are they that they will be left homeless and hungry, so exhausted by the constant harassment of repeated assessments and tribunals, the Job Centre have been issued with suicide guidelines.

Last year, Harrington made many suggestions to improve the assessments being used (WCAs or Work Capability Assessments) and some of them did address issues that needed urgent change. The clearest was ensuring that evidence from a person's GP or Consultant was considered in the decision making process. I know, I know, sane people would assume that was already happening, but it wasn't. Just 2% of claims considered the opinion of...erm....a patient's own doctor or healthcare professional. In 98% of cases, the computer, she simply say "yes" or "no"

Again, this reader with just a little curiosity and common sense, might ask why they are extending ESA amongst such chaos? Why are they rolling it out to a further 2 million Incapacity Benefit claimants AND designing a near identical system with which to assess the 3 million or so people on DLA? (Disability Living Allowance) One might ask why on earth something so draconian and cruel has not been paused until assessments can be made fairer?

One word : Harrington.

All the time they can say that he is sorting the whole mess out, we are to be re-assured.

ESA most fails those with mental health conditions, fluctuating conditions and learning difficulties. The impersonal, tick box computers just cannot accurately be made to fit variation or nuance. In his 1st year report, Harrington did not even deal with these problems, so we were all waiting fairly impatiently to see the conclusions of his year 2 report. Today, it is more urgent than ever to make sure that these problems are solved - preferably about 3 years ago, but today would do.

Well, I read Harrington Year 2 yesterday and I'm not sure quite what he's been doing all year. No conclusions can be drawn! No changes are yet to be taken forward! No descriptors can be agreed on (yet). The opinions of Mencap, Mind, The National Autistic Society, National Association for Crohn's and Colitis, the MS society, Arthritis Care and many others were simply not "evidence based." Harrington did pat them all on the head, send them away and say they could have another go, but unless their decades of experience could translate into "evidence" that the DWP would like, it just wouldn't do.

As for suggestions that the assessment should be a "real life test" - looking at work someone could actually do, rather than asking if they can pick up a penny or do up a button - well this is clearly nonsense! How on earth can this be empirical? impersonal? quantifiable? Silly little CABs! Off you go now, try again, but as Chris Grayling says, he is "absolutely, unreservedly and implacably opposed" to something as logical as a real life test, I imagine it won't matter what the CABs come back with.

So that's it then. Nothing to see here. Move along.

A cynic might conclude that as ESA was never designed to support those with long term variable conditions anyway, any changes to ESA that ensures that it does would not be what IDS is looking for at all. If ESA was designed to simply make sure people couldn't claim unless their head fell off, then Harrington must be very careful to make sure that people with heads don't get above themselves.

As though lives are not at stake, Harrington tells us :

"I have seen these improvements [from yr 1] in the day-to-day running of both DWP
Operations and Atos. This has taken time and some observers have told
me that they have seen no change. I advise patience. The process of
improvement is happening, but is not yet in evidence everywhere. It will take
time to have the desired impact and the year three Review will closely monitor
the impact of the changes and ensure there is continuing progress in
improving the assessment."

Patience???? Patience???? How much more patient are we to be man? This is our LIVES you ask us to put to one side. Some of us don't even have until "year 3". 

The only silver lining is the clear irritation he shows with the independent tier of the tribunal service, who repeatedly tell him (well, they tell him to go away basically) that their service is "outside of his remit". When Harrington even dared to suggest - wait for it - that the judiciary run training courses to explain the "beneficial nature of work" they not only told him that was "outside of his remit" but reminded him rather sternly that their job was to uphold the law. He didn't like that one bit. 

So, we are no further forward. But it's OK, because we just need to be "patient". the government however, need show no such patience and are free to crack on at the rate of 11,000 people a week. Charities, Citizen's Advice Bureaux and campaigners must go away and work on new "evidence" yet the DWP can produce Impact Assessments like this one  http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/esa-time-limit-wr2011-ia-revised-apr2011.pdf so totally devoid of any evidence at all that those who read it for the first time are usually shocked.

It's shameful. 

So Professor Harrington, as you trundle on into year three, perhaps, every morning, as you wake up, you will do a little sum for me. 11,000 people per week. That's very roughly 1,500 people per day. 600 of them will go to tribunal, believing their decision to be wrong. Up to 420 of them will win. That's 420 lives lived in "patience". Every day. 420 people, who must find the strength and resilience to wait up to a year to go to tribunal because the system you are "reviewing" is so appallingly unfit for purpose. 

I don't think patience is the issue Professor. You have simply let us down in the most disappointing way. 

A Triumph? Of Sorts....

It would seem that the government are finally willing to step down over plans to remove mobility payments for adults in residential care.

Expect fanfares and trumpets in the next few days. Expect to hear that this is a government who “listens,” who does the right thing. A government who cares for the most vulnerable.

A cynic, however, might point out that a government who even considers taking this most basic freedom away from some of the most profoundly disabled is badly out of touch with the needs of disabled people. Suggesting that disabled people should be kept housebound and unable to access society is so very disgusting that one would hope they would see that it was impossible. After all, I don’t reward my children for not kicking puppies.

If one were even more cynical, one might conclude that this measure, which was only ever set to save a paltry 160 million per year, was only included in the bill in the first place to be dropped in a warm glow of benevolence.

One might conclude that it was a measure so outrageous, so cruel, that it was always designed to draw attention away from  other element of the Welfare Reform Bill that were even more cruel, but much, much harder to explain to a wider public.

Such cynicism might lead us to conclude that Time Limiting Contributory ESA, which affects 700 thousand people and saves the government up to 5 billion over the term of the parliament is a much greater prize and that by giving ground over a miniscule 160 million, critics will be silenced.

The benefit cap, which is predicted to make up to 200,000 people homeless, the plans to cut housing benefit for some of the most vulnerable, cuts to childcare and child benefit – all of these measures save the government much, much more money.

So, when the Daily Mail and the DWP start gushing with paternalistic largesse, when they jubilantly proclaim their disabled-friendly credentials, let’s be glad. But let’s not, for one moment allow them to claim that they listened. 

Crisis? You bet it is.

Crisis / Aviva

Now that I live in a flat, my mail appears magically in a pigeon hole. Sometimes, it is me who works this magic, making sure that generic letters etc get distributed to the correct resident.

Unsolicited mail is up for debate. Some seems to go into the pigeon holes, others seem to go into a big basket-of-disdain by the door.

Yesterday, I found myself Bastion of the Mail. I tucked various bills and goodies into slots and was left with 6 appeals from Crisis, the homeless charity and 6 from Aviva no less, asking residents if they might consider taking out salary insurance now that sickness benefits have been cut to the bone!!

I made the executive decision to distribute the Crisis appeal and bin Aviva. The irony of it being me who found these angel/devil mailshots did not, however, escape me....

Adults in Need

This year's Children in Need was the most successful ever. Raising £26 Million it showed the very best of the UK. Even in these times of austerity - perhaps especially so - people emphatically and unstintingly showed that they will always protect the most vulnerable.

I felt the same sense of pride when the UK was by far the biggest donor to the Pakistan flood appeal and the famine in Somalia. I feel the same sense of pride when I remember that the UK is still the biggest donor of foreign aid, despite our own difficulties.

But at what point do all those brave, terribly sick and damaged children become scroungers? Is there a cut off point where our sympathy runs dry? Where a cute, worthy child becomes a lazy, feckless adult? There must be. When does the abused child become an adult statistic of alcohol or drug dependency? - The lowest of the low in the benefit system according to Maria Miller. When does a disabled child become a drain on the welfare system? When does a terribly unwell little boy become a man facing persecution and abuse by his neighbour? When do we decide that a little girl with learning difficulties becomes worth nothing more than a 12 mile round trip to a soup kitchen every week just to stay alive?

If politicians are now united on anything, it is that the "scrounger" rhetoric, so beloved by the Daily Mail, Express, BBC and other outlets must stop. It harms the case for welfare reform, disability hate crime is rising and society is becoming more and more polarised over the issue of sickness and disability support and care.

Chris Grayling says that he is "bemused" by the stories that appear in the paper, yet time and again, the DWP have been warned not to use their press releases in a way that leads to inflammatory, "scrounger" articles. They have been warned repeatedly not to use misleading statistics. Lord Freud says that it concerns him, the Work and Pensions Select Committee has repeatedly called for it to stop and even Iain Duncan-Smith has renounced attempts to paint the sick and disabled as workshy.

This week a report by Dame Carol Black suggested ways that people on long term sick leave might be encouraged and supported to stay in work. The report was heavily leaked to the newspapers days before it was released with accompanying quotes from welfare ministers and peers.

Dame Black said that said that she "travelled round the country" speaking to sick and disabled people and found that they wished they had "A sense of self worth" and that they had a job.

Well, I have a sense of "self worth" Dame Black. Self worth does not come from a paycheck. It comes from family and love and achievement, It comes from within, it is not dependent on the zeros on my salary.

Lord Freud went further. He seemed to imply that those signed off work sick for more than 4 weeks drifted into some kind of no man's land of despair, he claimed that politicians were therefore creating "An incubator for idleness" by not addressing the problem.

An incubator for idleness!! So now if you should become unable to go to work for a few weeks, for almost any reason you are "idle". Not unfortunate, not unwell, not disabled, but "idle"

In perhaps his most offensive faux-pas yet,**  recently, during a committee debate, Lord Freud referred to sick and disabled people as "stock". Not claimants, not customers, not even the highly impersonal "flow rates", but "stock"


Can one hear that description and fail to think of cattle, herded against their will? What else does it make you think of?

So really, how mystified can our politicians be? Is it really so hard to see that language like this reinforces a general perception of worthlessness, failure and anonymity? How dare they, with their paternalistic, patronising, assumptions pass judgement on 1 in 5 of the population so flippantly?

In my experience, if nothing else, politicians choose their words incredibly carefully. Words win elections. One brilliant sound-bite can bring down a government. One killer slogan can topple heads of state.

It is inconceivable that our politicians do not know exactly what they are doing when they refer to idleness and worthlessness and "stock"

When Children in Need become Adults in Need it seems politicians will stop at nothing to ensure that your sympathy runs dry.


** Though telling Jane Campbell, a peer in a wheelchair, that his department was "leaning over backwards" to make committee stage accessible came pretty close

If you want to help, please sign Pat's Petition here :

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/20968

Me on the Radio

Here's the link to last night's show on Radio 5 Live.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b017gwq5/Stephen_Nolan_Race_or_Class/

I really rather enjoy making people like Mark Littlewood sound a bit silly ;)

Radio 5 Live Tonight

Just to let you all know, I will be on Radio 5 Live tonight at 10pm, discussing the government leaks on a new "sicknote" report that aims to keep people in work. The report is due to be published on Monday.

I hope this link will take you to the show http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017gwq5

You can read more about the plans here http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/workers-on-longterm-sick-leave-face-tougher-assessment-tests-6264610.html   and here http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/workers-on-longterm-sick-leave-face-tougher-assessment-tests-6264610.html

Do think about calling in to give me some moral support ;)