Crippen Cartoons cartoons at the cutting edge of disability

Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) have dismissed the government’s new Disability Action Plan as a series of “empty promises” that fail to address the “dire situation” disabled people are facing.

The plan, and its 32 “practical actions”, was launched by disability minister Mims Davies on Tuesday, following a 12-week public consultation that took place last year.

All 32 actions appear to be low or zero budget measures, and there are no striking new policies, and apparently no new legislation or spending commitments before the general election. The plan is intended to run alongside the longer-term National Disability Strategy, which was heavily criticised by a cross-party committee of MPs last year.

That report by the Commons women and equalities committee said in December that the disability strategy was merely “a list consisting mainly of pre-existing departmental actions with minimal strategic thinking behind how those actions interact”.

Reactions to the action plan from DPOs have been uniformly negative, with all those contacted by Disability News Service highlighting the government’s failure to address the major issues affecting disabled people, such as the cost-of-living crisis, social care charging, disability hate crime, a hostile Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), and inaccessible housing and transport.

Read the full story in Disability News Service.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

Rishi Sunak and Mims Davies stand against a backdrop of some 30 monkeys all tapping away on typewriters. A large sign above their heads read ‘Disability Action Plan’. Davies is also holding a card with ’32 Actions’ printed upon it. Below the image is a text block which reads: “Enough monkeys hitting typewriter keys at random will almost surely produce a list consisting mainly of pre-existing department actions with minimal strategic thinking behind how those actions interact!”