A government contractor has told a traumatised abuse survivor he must be reassessed for employment and support allowance (ESA), just a week after a minister faced a call to resign for threatening to stop another of his disability benefits. Justin … Continue reading →
Most mental health service-users are still deeply divided about identifying with the social model of disability, but still favour moving away from the medicalised attitude of professionals and towards a more “social” approach, according to a new report. The user-led … Continue reading →
Providing support from their peers is an effective way of boosting disabled people’s job prospects, and should be used far more in government work programmes, according to two new studies. The research from Disability Rights UK (DR UK) and … Continue reading →
Union delegates say the government’s decision to reverse planned cuts to its new disability benefit could be a turning-point in the fightback against its repeated attacks on disabled people. The TUC Disabled Workers Conference in London voted in favour of … Continue reading →
A disabled parent has accused his local authority of discriminating against him by refusing to take his access needs into account when deciding which primary school his son can attend in September. Youcef Bey-Zekkoub believes the school admissions process … Continue reading →
A traumatised child abuse victim has branded the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) “shameful” for trying to force him to attend a benefits reassessment, when he is waiting to give evidence at an institutional abuse trial. David* has severe … Continue reading →
By John Pring Disability News Service Thursday 26th May 2016 Labour’s shadow chancellor has called for Iain Duncan Smith to face criminal charges over allegations that his failure to address a coroner’s concerns about the “fitness for work” test led … Continue reading →
The government may have abandoned its target to halve the disability employment gap, according to a leading disabled people’s organisation. Disability Rights UK (DR UK) said it feared comments made last week by the new work and pensions secretary, Stephen … Continue reading →
The computer system used for new personal independence payment (PIP) claims has crashed twice in a week, just days after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) insisted it was “working as it should”. On both occasions, last Wednesday (11 … Continue reading →
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) appears to have exposed hundreds of disabled people to the activities of a fraudster and convicted paedophile who posed as a lawyer to steal the money they were owed from discrimination claims. The Claims Management … Continue reading →
Ministers have refused to say if they implemented 10 measures – recommended by their own civil servants – that would have made it less likely that “vulnerable” benefit claimants would lose their lives. The 10 recommendations were taken from some … Continue reading →
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has finally admitted that it could be partly responsible for the deaths of some benefit claimants. The admission came – quietly – after its release of heavily-redacted versions of 49 secret “peer reviews” … Continue reading →
By John Pring Disability News Service Saturday 14th May 2016 After 21 months of smokescreens, excuses, obstruction and secrecy, work and pensions ministers have finally been forced to publish some of the conclusions reached by their own civil servants about … Continue reading →
By Patrick Butler and John Pring ‘Peer reviews’ challenge claims by ministers that there is no connection between welfare reform policies and deaths of vulnerable claimants A series of secret internal inquiries into the deaths of people claiming social security … Continue reading →
A pioneering programme backed by £5 million of lottery cash has issued a call for user-led teams across the UK to apply for funding to research new ways to remove the barriers to independent living faced by disabled people. … Continue reading →
Two disabled peers have criticised ministers for refusing to collect figures that would demonstrate the impact of a key element of new benefit rules that will see tens of thousands of people losing their Motability vehicles. The Liberal Democrat peer … Continue reading →
The new work and pensions secretary has suggested the government’s pledge to halve the disability employment gap will face lengthy delays, after he said he wanted to spend a “few years” testing how to achieve the target. Stephen Crabb, who … Continue reading →
The new work and pensions secretary has sent out mixed signals on whether he wants to make further cuts to spending on disability benefits. Stephen Crabb, who was appointed after the resignation of Iain Duncan Smith in March, was giving … Continue reading →
Leaving the European Union (EU) would put at risk significant improvements that have been made to the lives of disabled people over the last 15 years, according to three of the country’s leading academics working in the disability rights field. … Continue reading →
Lawyers, campaigners, peers and academics have spoken of how disabled people can find it almost impossible to enforce their rights to equality, six years after the introduction of the Equality Act. They were speaking at a seminar in London – … Continue reading →