Theres no such thing as value disability.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/iain-duncan-smith-fairness-for-the-taxpayer--and-for-the-claimant-6792183.html

Above is an article from the independant in which Iain Duncan Smith outlines his reasons for the introduction of universal credit and general welfare reform. I am going to copy some statements and reply to them.


Five million people are trapped on out-of-work benefits and almost two million children are growing up in workless households, seeing a life on benefits as normal.


Disabled people do not feel trapped on these benefits. For disabled people benefits are a lifeline that enables them to live with dignity and respect. Disability doesn't discriminate, and you can't pay disability to go away. A life on benefits is not a life of luxury for disabled people, nor is a life on benefits seen as normal or desirable. I am sure the majority of disabled people would give up their life of benefits for a life free from their condition and the disabling effects of that which prevents them from engaging in the way the state expects. 


What traps disabled people isn't the benefits system, but the work system. It seems bizarre to punish disabled people for the inflexible nature of work and employment to accommodate and make adjustments for disabled people to enable them to work. This is social model thinking. It is not the fault of the disabled person for being different, but the society that is at fault for calling them deficient. 


 It will be simpler for people to navigate and harder for people to defraud but, most importantly, it will make work pay. No longer will it be possible to be better off on benefits than in work.


Again, this is a lie and spin. I have demonstrated before that someone is better off in work than on benefits. What Mr Duncan smith is encouraging is hard working people thinking that everyone on benefits is better off. Yes, if you take a hard working couple and compare it with a family of 5, of course the family of five is going to be better off, but it is an unfair comparison.  If you take a family of 2 in work and compare it with a family of 2 on benefits, then yes, the couple in work are going to be considerably better off.


 Universal credit will reward people who choose to go back to work by ensuring that they are better off than they would be on benefits.


Again, the system as it currently is already enables this. see above. Disabled people very often don't have a choice whether to go to work or not. That choice is made for them by the inflexible nature of the work environment. 




 Together with our reforms, this sends the signal that a life on benefits must not be more attractive than working.


A life on benefits is not attractive. Come and live my life for a month. I will gladly swap anyone in work who is healthy with my disabled life on benefits. thats all i have to say.


The public do not believe that claimants should receive higher incomes than families in work


The public only believe this because of media spin like this article that drip feeds the notion that benefits claimants receive more money. its simply not true (as above)


Furthermore, we will exempt people who are in work and claiming tax credits, war widows or widowers, disabled people in receipt of disability living allowance, as well as those who can't work and get the highest level of support from employment and support allowance.


As the new DLA, PIP will be payed to 500,000 less disabled people, who will still be in need of help and support this will hit them the hardest. They will lose out on both PIP and the protection that it offers them. As for the ESA system, even the creator of the system has hit out at its flaws. It is a lottery if you end up in the right group of ESA, it is not based on need.


and more than three-quarters of the British people agree.


Is there a source for this?


No longer can the taxpayer continue to write blank cheques to pay for benefit claimants to live in properties they can only dream of.


People on benefits live in houses with a higher rent because landlords put the rent up for them so they can claim more money from the state. There is not a blank cheque for benefits claimaints. Already the introduction of the local housing allowance means that people can only live in the cheapest 50percent of properties. This is now being reduced to 30%. This statement will only cause more upset and harm, again, more spin.


 Welfare budgets were allowed to rocket, and the Government now distributes an astonishing £200bn each year 


And that is something we should be proud of. We are a nation that supports our most vunerable. The people who have become unemployed, the people who can't work, the sick, children and elderly. 

Transcript of tanni-grey-thompson-video

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2012/feb/06/tanni-grey-thompson-video

(unchecked)

The welfare reform bill (WRB) has been incredibly frustrating because of the serious impact its going to have on many tens of thousands of disabled people. And I think I and lots of other people expected our amendments to be overturned in the commons what we probably didn’t expect was financial implications to be brought in against that which really kinda ties our hands and makes it much more challenging to take back different amendments to keep fighting this through because our job in the lords is to try to improve legislation, ask the government to think again

The reform of the welfare state is incredibly important, yes I know we have to save money BUT half a million disabled people could be seriously affected by the changes that the government are bringing in and that means that poorer people, the most vulnerable in society will be pushed into more difficult circumstances and to me, it doesn’t feel at the moment like the whole of society is bearing the brunt of our austerity. Its not affecting me,  its not affecting many of my friends, but it is affecting disabled people, disabled people in low paid work.

And there no doubt, disability living allowance (DLA) is not perfect but,  I don’t think we’e moved in enough of a direction that reassures disabled people that they are going to be protected and they are going to be safe.

And I’m not convinced we are going to be saving the money that the government think we are going to save.

I’m getting on average about 600 emails a week from disabled people who are terrified about the changes and an awful lot around DLA. One mans contacted me saying if he drops out of DLA, he will lose his car, which means that he wont be able to get to work and he’s in very low paid work where he lives there’s no public transport which is accessible, and his car is the only means of actually being able to be integrated in society. And actually, that’s the tip of the iceberg because society is generally not that accessible for disabled people. so if disabled people start dropping out of work, then they start becoming ghettoized and their not seen as a natural part of society and actually I worry that its gonna become the way it was when I was young where you just didn’t see disabled people out on the street because they were locked away. They weren’t in education, they weren’t in work, so the public just didn’t see them.

We haven’t seen disabled people protesting on the streets for about 20 years, and that’s what im starting to see again, you know disabled people are coming together to say look, you know please don’t treat us like this. And it is a worry, and its part of, I guess the game of politics in terms of what information gets out there, how much interest the public take, but there is a view that disabled people are raking it in, that their living in a life of luxury and you know the worlds ok for them. And the reality is nowhere near that. Most disabled people I know are in very low paid jobs, or their unable to get work because of discrimination. And on a day to day basis they have people who discriminate against them. And even me, you know, im in the house of lords, I was a successful athlete. Every single day I have people who talk down to me, who patronize me, who ask me do i need help. When I say no they still kinda give it to me, you know I get pushed across the road. And if that’s happening to me and someone who’s very confident about dealing with it, what’s happening to disabled people who don’t feel  their able to fight against that and don’t eel they have a voice to speak up against it.

Having Paralympics on home soil is an amazing opportunity to help to push a change in attitude to disability, to encourage better accessibility and better integration. However then on the other side of my life I’m talking about welfare reform and how badly most disabled people are treated and I think one of the things that we’ve not seen, which we’ve seen in terms of other minority sectors is the disability rights movement get together with sports. In feminist politics and women athletes in sport are very closely linked so your actually able to drive change, but actually elite sport doesn’t fit with the social model of disability because elite sport is about beating everyone else, being better than everyone else, its not about being equal, and then disability rights is about trying to get better equality for all disabled people but I think there’s a lot we can learn and actually if more disabled athletes become  politically educated and politically aware about how the vast majority of disabled people are treated.. They provide a very good platform and are very good to speak out. So I think we’ve seen a much closer move together nd I can only see the benefit from disability rights and sport working together to bring about some positive changes.

Links for Disability stuff...

Theres too many tabs open on my browser of good stories, so I thought would start to collate stories again.. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/2012/02/06/ministers-condmened-for-sending-letters-to-thousands-of-dying-people-urging-them-to-consider-getting-a-job-115875-23737802/#.Ty_ArFp0caE.twitter
The Department of Work and Pensions stood by the letters. A spokeswoman said: “There are no conditions attached to the financial support you receive if you have a terminal illness.
“However, it would be wrong not to give those with a terminal illness the same opportunities as others. All our customers are told about the extra support their benefit entitles them to.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/05/holly-ferrie-case-study?CMP=twt_gu

'I never qualified for disability benefit, yet I'm still called a faker'

Holy Ferrie, 24, blames government drive to cut disability benefit for a rising tide of hostility

http://hullrepublic.tumblr.com/post/17107267353/guest-blog-soundbites-spin-and-spartacus

The problem with the truth is that it’s complicated. Lies are simple, they can be altered to fit any audience, they can be sensational without any boring honest bits to dilute the story. Honesty doesn’t make headlines. That’s the problem with the Welfare Reform Bill; not the only problem, obviously, but the reason that there won’t be a huge public outcry until its too late.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/06/minister-disabled-no-shortage-jobs?CMP=twt_gu Minister for disabled people: there is no shortage of jobs

Maria Miller blames unemployment on people's unwillingness to apply for work

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/05/benefit-cuts-fuelling-abuse-disabled-people?CMP=twt_gu Benefit cuts are fuelling abuse of disabled people, say charities

Rising public resentment blamed on government focus on alleged 'scrounger' fraud and inflammatory media coverage

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2012/feb/06/tanni-grey-thompson-video Tanni Grey-Thompson: 'A lot of disabled people are terrified of the changes to disability living allowance' – video

Lady Grey-Thompson, one of the UK's most successful elite sportswomen and Crossbench peer in the House of Lords, discusses her reservations about the government's welfare reform bill, how society's attitudes to disabled people have hardened, and why Paralympians should join the disability rights campaign

http://www.leftfootforward.org/2012/02/dwp-scrounger-rhetoric-causing-real-harm/
Six leading disability charities have spoken out against the government’s ‘scrounger’ rhetoric on welfare cuts, saying it fuels abuse of disabled people.

http://lostheskald.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/work-the-social-model-and-the-welfare-reform-bill/
The question of work for disabled people has been artfully reduced to a simple ‘fit for work’ binary by the rhetoric of successive governments, and this has become even more entrenched in discussions about the Welfare Reform Bill (WRB) currently passing (or being forced) through Parliament.

http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/2012/02/brilliant-sam-barnett-cormack-has-been.html
Campaigners have argued strongly that we should not be expected to pass law for a new disability benefit until we knew exactly who would qualify and under what circumstances. Despite this, the Government only released the PIP criteria the day before the vote in the Lords on PIP.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2097157/If-public-opinion-turning-disabled-disability-charities-blame.html

Both major political parties are generally agreed that at least a million people live on state sickness benefits when they are not actually sick or disabled.

This mass abuse of the welfare state began in the 1980s when the decline of heavy industry left large numbers of middle-aged men without jobs and without much enthusiasm for finding new ones. Since then there has been no shortage of new volunteers who prefer not to work and who find it convenient to live on sickness benefits.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/article6579630.ece

Government focus on alleged fraud and over-claiming to justify cuts in benefits is fuelling abuse against disabled people, charities have warned.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2097403/Rollover-time-benefit-lottery.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

even though there are no plans whatsoever to target the genuinely disabled. incapacity and disability allowances are paid only to those genuinely unfit for work.

http://wearespartacus.org.uk/2012/02/06/alone-we-whisper-together-we-shout/

You all know how important it is to feel you have a say in things that concern you, especially in these difficult times.  It’s not surprising you feel powerless when the government seems to have the upper hand in making changes that affect disabled and sick peoples’ lives. This is YOUR chance to have your say on one of the most important issues facing disabled people today – the change from Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to the Personal Independence Payment, or PIP.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/04/disabled-dla-benefit-cuts?CMP=twt_gu

I'm 25, naturally blonde, the hardness of my fingernails is such that they never break and I have an unhealthy captivation with EastEnders. I'm also a wheelchair user who has been severely disabled since birth. However, that's not important and I don't want to talk about it, OK?

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/02/07/is-there-really-not-a-shortage-of-jobs-as-the-govt-claims/

Yesterday, the minister for disabled people, Maria Miller, said there are no shortage of jobs and blamed unemployment on people’s unwillingness to apply for work.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/stuart-white/liberty-is-at-stake-commons-lords-and-welfare-reform-bill Last month, in the context of the innovative ‘Spartacus campaign’ by disabled people, the second chamber of the UK Parliament, the House of Lords, passed a series of amendments – seven in all – to the Welfare Reform Bill.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-24033624-disabled-are-at-the-mercy-of-ministers-and-media.do What would you think if you heard the Home Office was colluding with newspapers to fuel hatred against gay people? Or if affable Ken Clarke at the Ministry of Justice fed propaganda to broadcasters designed to disparage ethnic minorities? There would, quite rightly, be an outcry.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/iain-duncan-smith-fairness-for-the-taxpayer--and-for-the-claimant-6792183.html
My message is clear: we must restore fairness to the claimant through making work pay and fairness to the taxpayer by ensuring money isn't wasted on trapping people on benefits.

http://www.leamingtoncourier.co.uk/news/local/cuts_to_disability_benefits_the_human_cost_1_3511246

Last week Warwickshire group Disabled People Against Cuts protested against the Welfare Reform Bill outside the office of Warwick and Leamington MP Chris White, who nonetheless voted in favour of the Bill.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/blog/2012/feb/13/lottery-winner-benefits-not-feel-right?newsfeed=true

A lottery winner claiming benefits just does not feel rightOur sense of fairness is being tested in all sorts of ways, and next month's budget will test it even further

http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/pound-26k-benefit-cap-affect-1-000-families/story-15214078-detail/story.html Almost 1,000 households in Leicester receive more than £26,000 a year in state benefits, new figures reveal.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/feb/11/disabled-housing-wheelchair-user?newsfeed=true

Five years in a budget hotel because my husband uses a wheelchair

A long battle with a housing association about repairs to their home left a family facing eviction and £67k in debt

http://www.newstoday.co.uk/5180/2012/02/golfer-claims-disability-allowence/ ASUALLY enjoying a leisurely round a golf, this is the damning footage that landed a cheating pensioner in court after he claimed nearly £30,000 in benefits on the basis he was so disabled he could not even feed himself.

we don't need no education?

You know those mildly amusing pictures that tell stories or have cute fluffy things with words on them? Well I seen one of those the other day and its got me thinking.

It basically said that you go to school and are taught to sit behind a desk and take instruction to learn how to be an adult and go to work to sit behind a desk and take instruction.

This is very true. As part of my degree I also study education, and as well as disability this is also of interest to me academically.

If the theory is that you become what you get conditioned into at school, then shouldn't society look to school as the source of the problem surrounding disability and work?

It isn't just society that takes the opinion of sitting behind a desk to work, that is also the sort of job that ATOS supposedly is judging you on being fit for work with. But, are disabled people being taught these skills and more specifically are special schools denying children the opportunity learn to work at school?

As I have only recently become disabled it is hard for me to answer this in a special school context. However, I remember that when I was at school, those who didn't achieve to a certain standard were not entered for exams, deeming them failures before even leaving.

I have seen an adult day centre that is supposdely vocational but tends to focus on the traditional skills of gardening and crafts. Those skills really dont create meaningful work opportunities (I know they do sometimes)

Instead of resigning disabled people into certain low skilled, low paid work why not encourage and make possible for disabled people to be trained into meaningful employment. Basically what I am saying is that alongside the employers who need training in how best to support disabled people in work, do disabled people also need to play a part in becoming employable, and I dont mean that as to blame disabled people, but the education system itself.

I am also aware that there are alot of highly educated disabled people who are unable to find work, and I think that that is also not the disabled persons fault, but that of a society that fails to appreciate that disabled people can have high aspirations and can achieve great things. The jobcentre is one example of this (although it is not disabled person specific)

Basically if you are expected to fail in education you will, and if you are expected to be a high achiever then you are encouraged to and will more than likely be one.

If we are to create an inclusive society where employers are willing to employ disabled people, does inclusive and aspirational education for disabled people also play a part?

CeSA and the time limit.

Contributory ESA in the work related activity group has once again been cut to one year. I am thinking, when the assessment for income based ESA is done after the year limit you could then divide people into two groups.

Those who are entitled to Income ESA can move onto that, and then those on CESA who would otherwise be ineligble can continue for another year?


I dont know how much cheaper this would be though?

look at all of us :)

this is Spartacus. When you reach 1000 you can get a pretty picture of allthe supporters..

Disability, independance and labels...

Im sure I’m not alone in remembering the time that it dawned on me, I am disabled. Whether that is as a child going to school or in my case it was when I was first entitled to Disability living allowance. That name, my new label. Disability.

Let me be clear, when I was first deemed disabled there was no party. It isn’t like getting a job or graduating where people are actually happy about it. It isn’t a status symbol. In a lot of cases it is about the accepting of a new way of life, one of pain, shame and illness. It is, at first a pretty negative experience.

I haven’t seen long queues at the doctors wanting to be labeled as disabled, because of some perverse desire to be considered somehow as ill.  It isn’t (contrary to some newspapers) an easy life. It is a difficult life and one that involves a complete shift in perspective if you have become disabled after birth.

Now I admit there are financial “benefits” to this label. However,  these financial benefits are far outweighed by the additional costs involved with disability. Whatever sort of disability it may be. There are other, more personal costs as well. I may have a free bus pass, but it comes with the knowledge that I will never be able to drive.

I don’t know how many other disabled people have come this far in their journey or even to the same point as I have. But I have moved along way from that initial realisation of disabled.

For me, my disability was my own, completely circling around me and my lifestyle and my choices in life. I can’t say I blamed myself, but I did feel blamed and I guess in someway accepted that. I had been discriminated against because I wasn’t well enough to go to uni, yes, it might have been wrong, but the onus was always on me to change.

Until I started studying disability studies and slowly I came round to social model thinking, that actually society could go a long way to adapting to my disability and it was them that was making it harder for me.

And then I started to fight back.

I remember a particular conversation with my GP. She said to me that she didn’t consider me disabled, and that she knew of others worse off than me. At this point I was pretty clear on the social model and so I explained to her that in fact it was opinions like that which made society disabling. Apart from not knowing me personally she was trying to judge me differently to what I perceived to be true. After coming away from that appointment I considered, I am on DISABLED students allowance, DISABILITY living allowance,  I have a DISABILITY bus pass. If those things didn’t make me disabled I don’t know what does.

The worrying thing for me is that the welfare reform bill, and even ESA is actually going to make it easier for people to consider claiming falsly for these benefits. By taking away the label DISABILITY or INCAPACITY from the new benefits it also takes away the feelings associated with acceptance of  that particular label.

When I got my DLA it was a weird experience, as I was happy that I received it, but it was making a reality that I was really disabled. By changing this to personal independence payment it  refocuses it away from disability and blurs the lines quite considerably.

I am not saying this to be negative, just to be critical.  When a person receives Disability Living allowance there is a certain stigma attached and I hope, and I guess this might be behind the low fraud rate. As I said before, no one is queuing up to be labeled as disabled, and this Disability living allowance does exactly that. Personal independence payment simply takes the disability out of the benefit and replaces it with independence. The scary thing is that the opposite of independence is dependence, and there will be 500,000 sick and disabled people not entitled to be independent, and therefore, by default will be dependant.