the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been accused of secrecy after it was revealed it plans to keep hidden a review into disability cuts.
Last night campaigners said disabled people had a right to know the report’s conclusions, while Labour said the move “beggared belief”.
Controversy has raged over the cuts since they were first announced last October.
Under the proposals, tens of thousands of disabled people in residential homes, including around 6000 Scots, would lose benefits designed to help them get out and about.
Charities and disabled groups immediately accused the Government of picking on the most vulnerable in society.
Thousands marched on Westminster in protest and the Scottish LibDem conference in Perth earlier this year was picketed.
Only last week Maria Miller, the minister in charge, was forced to publicly insist the policy would not leave disabled people trapped indoors.
Following the outcry the cuts were delayed for a year to allow a review to be carried out.
It has now emerged, in response to questioning from Labour, that the DWP plans to keep the results of that review hidden.
Archive for May, 2011
Asperger’s charity loses children’s data
29 May 2011Personal information relating to 80 children with Asperger’s syndrome has been stolen from a Sheffield charity.
A laptop containing names, addresses and medical information was stolen from Asperger’s Children and Carers Together (ACCT).
The computer was taken from the home of an employee and reported in December.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said the incident breached data protection and the charity must ensure “information is encrypted”.
Council pays out £50,000 in ‘lost care payments’
27 May 2011A council has been forced to pay back four-and-a-half year’s worth of respite payments to a claimant after an admin blunder meant she never received the £960 a month she needed to look after her mother with dementia.
Local Government Ombudsman, Dr Jane Martin, has issued a report which is critical of the City of London’s adult social care team’s failure to pay agreed funding, totalling more than £50,000 over the four-and-a-half years for respite care.
London pensioner and disabled protest disrupts traffic
26 May 2011Thanks to Lisa for raising awareness of this article
Pensioners and people in wheelchairs held up London traffic for almost an hour protesting at government cuts.
Wheelchair users Sam Brackenbury and Daniel Estermann handcuffed themselves to the back of a double-decker bus in Oxford Circus.
Members of the Greater London Pensioners’ Association stood in front of the bus holding placards.
They said they were “taking direct action” against cuts for the disabled and elderly.
Understanding the lives of those who care
26 May 2011Developing a clearer understanding of the Carer’s Allowance claimant group
by Gary Fry, Benedict Singleton, Sue Yeandle and Lisa Buckner
This study explores the caring situations and other circumstances of carers who receive Carer’s Allowance (CA). Almost one million carers who provide 35 or more hours of care to a person in receipt of certain qualifying benefits are entitled to CA, and over half a million were ‘in payment’ in 2009. This report is based on survey data from over 500 current CA recipients, and qualitative data from 83 of these, a review of previous literature and new analysis of official Department for Work and Pensions’ statistics on the full range of CA customers.
The study highlights CA customers’ wide range of demanding caring roles, (in most cases supporting a son, daughter, parent or spouse with a serious illness or disability). It draws attention to their relatively poor health, to the challenges they face in managing their caring situation, often with limited support, and to their difficulty in combining their caring with paid work. The study, and the recommendations it makes, draws particular attention to the services and support needs of CA customers, their aspirations relating to paid employment, and how the design of CA – including the rules on eligibility for CA and the limit on CA customers’ earnings from paid work – interact with carers’ other benefits and with other services and support carers may receive. The report concludes that a review of CA features relating to these issues is particularly important for the well-being and longer-term financial security of this group, and for their sense of being valued for their role by society at large.
Disability Living Allowance – Works and Pensions
26 May 2011Written answers and statements, 23 May 2011
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what timetable his Department has set for the reassessment of people in receipt of disability living allowance.
Maria Miller (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Disabled People), Work and Pensions; Basingstoke, Conservative)
From 2013 we will begin to replace disability living allowance for people of working age with personal independence payment, a new, more transparent benefit and objective assessment of individual need. We expect that by 2016 all existing working age recipients of disability living allowance will have been reassessed for personal independence payment. We will continue to involve disabled people and their organisations in the design of this exercise.
We want to build on the experience of developing an assessment and applying it to new and existing claimants of working age to inform our decisions about the arrangements for children and pensioners. Therefore, we will not extend personal independence payment to children or pensioners already receiving DLA until we have had an opportunity to consider the effectiveness of the new arrangements for working age people.
