Crippen Cartoons cartoons at the cutting edge of disability

So, have you got it?! When Boris say that there wasn’t a party at number ten, he means that there might have been a party, but one which nobody attended. And when work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey says that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) does not have a ‘duty of care’ to benefit claimants, she actually means that she’ll stick to that version as long as nobody leaks information that contradicts her!

This is why I was particularly delighted when our friend at Disability News Service (DNS), John Pring published an article revealing that Paul Gray, a civil servant commissioned by the DWP to review disability benefit assessments and who was recently giving evidence to the Common’s work and pensions committee, told them:

“Yes, of course there is a ‘duty of care’ in any process of this sort to treat people fairly, appropriately and empathetically.”

Perhaps he hadn’t heard that Coffey has repeatedly claimed that DWP does not have a legal duty to “safeguard” its claimants, who knows? But he also pointed to the duty to ensure the logistics of arranging face-to-face assessments are convenient and appropriate, the way the department communicated with claimants about PIP, and enabling relatives and others to support claimants.

He said: “Those are all things that I think it is entirely appropriate for the department to undertake and my sense is the department is aware of that sense of duty.”

And to compound the situation DNS has also reported how two earlier DWP documents show civil servants discussing the department’s ‘duty of care’. One recommended that the department should carry out a review of its “ongoing Duty of Care”. Whilst a second document, written to assist DWP staff in dealing with claimants who need support in using its services, stated:

“Where the claimant has a known background of mental illness there are minimum requirements that Jobcentre Plus should be adopting to ensure that we are not found to be neglectful in our ‘duty of care’ towards these claimants.” 

So there we are, or are we? Who knows? (gently bangs his head against the wall!).

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Therese Coffey is standing opposite a man in a grey suit who is holding a DWP press release. On the wall behind them is a sign that reads ‘DWP press office’. Coffey is saying to him: “So, we don’t have a duty of care but if we did then it isn’t the one that we might not have … got it?!” The man, looking bewildered responds with: “ …er?!”

It’s good to see that the DWP are continuing along in their fantasy world, oblivious to the real world that exists outside of their ivory towers.

One of my regular DWP whistle blowers has told me of an exercise that they participated in recently based upon so called feedback from disabled claimants.

Statements like “The DWP have been shown to really care about disabled claimants” and “We are continuing to build trust between front line staff and disabled claimants” are just a couple of the claims made by the DWP. Oh, and my favourite one: “The majority of people are satisfied with the disability assessment process.” You just couldn’t make this up could you?!

So the real problem as I see it, is that they don’t see that there’s a problem. Or they do, and this is just a way of brainwashing their staff into believing that they are doing a great job and should keep dishing out the same shitty treatment to disabled claimants … cause we’re apparently lapping it up.

This is just another example of the work that the DWP propaganda division (they surely must have one?!) are doing to twist facts and provide an image of themselves that is far from the truth. A bit like their response to the recent  National Disability Survey where they cherry picked a couple of positive comments and ignored the many negative responses that they received.

It reminds me of a certain regime in pre-war Germany, and look what they ended up doing!

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Boris Johnson is rolling around on the floor laughing as Therese Coffey is indicating towards a black board on which is written such statements as ‘ the majority of disabled people think that the DWP is doing a great job’. Boris is saying, with tears streaming down his face: “Brilliant Therese – have you considered writing comedy sketches?!”

Well, now we have it. The reason why the Labour Party seem incapable of offering any challenge to the fiasco that this government have inflicted upon us Crips is that their Shadow Disability Team aren’t really interested!

It appears that they are just not interested in any of the research undertaken that establishes how the deaths of disabled claimants were not only avoidable but seems to have been part of a calculated move to cull the so called ‘useless eaters’ of our society (that’s us folks!).

Encouraged by Labour MP John McDonnell, disabled researcher Mo Stewart has attempted to work with Labour’s shadow disability unit, supporting them with social policy briefings and facts and figures in order that they can provide a strong challenge to the government’s attacks on our NHS and other social care provision.  She has also supplied a submission to the Works and Pension’s Committee’s new call for evidence regarding assessments for health related benefits.

The response from Labour’s Shadow team is that they are NOT interested in research, with one member apparently suggesting that they would only want to see any research at the time of a general election. The Shadow Minister for Disability Vicky Foxcroft actually going so far as to tell Mo that she “isn’t interested” in any research!

So, how does the Shadow team expect to be able to hold the DWP to account when resisting access to all evidence that identifies the mental health crisis created by the Work Capability Assessment (WCA)? The mind boggles!

Looks like we’re well and truly on our own folks!

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The office of Vicky Foxcroft, Shadow Minister for Disabled, who is behind her desk. A grey suited flunky approaches her with a stack of documents. He says to her: “More research Minister proving that the government are to blame!” Foxcroft indicates a large container full of research documents relating to the government selling out NHS to U.S and DWP deaths etc. On the container is a sign that reads ‘documents to be incinerated’. She say to the flunky: “Not to worry – just put it with all the other evidence!”

We hear that the government may be forced to rewrite its National Disability Strategy if disabled campaigners are successful in their bid to persuade the High Court that the document is unlawful.

In an attempt to sow even more confusion, Therese Coffey the government’s works and pensions secretary, told the court that she did not have a legal duty to consult with disabled people on the cross-government strategy and that she had therefore chosen not to do so.

This is despite stating earlier that the UK Disability Survey (which the government carried out in January and February this year) was intended to be “part of our ongoing consultation” on the national strategy, she now argues that the survey was in fact an “information gathering exercise” designed only to gather data about the lives of disabled people!

Disabled activist Doug Paulley, one of the four campaigners who have taken this before the High Court, whilst rejecting the government’s latest attempt at spinning events to suit themselves (Ed: Surely not!), also highlighted the government’s failure to consult with disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) as part of the process. He claims it was “conspicuously unfair” and argued that the way the survey was carried out breached the government’s public sector equality duty under the Equality Act.

Sarah Hannett QC, representing Coffey, admitted that there was “perhaps some unfortunate language (used) referring to consultation”. She suggested that it had not been appropriate to carry out an overall consultation on such a wide-ranging strategy containing so many proposals, and that consultations would be carried out on some of the individual proposals “in due course”.

But Steve Broach, the barrister for the four disabled claimants said the survey had taken place “in the context of a concrete commitment to publish a strategy and with the express purpose” of obtaining views about what should be in it. He added: “It is crystal clear that this was a consultation, not merely a gathering of information” and that it was “inconceivable” that the government would publish a national strategy about any minority group without carrying out a proper consultation on it.

The judge, Mr Justice Griffiths, said he would deliver his judgment at a future date still to be decided.

Read more about this in the latest Disability News Service article.

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The scene is set in a court room with a high court judge sitting with a royal crown on the wall behind him. Beneath him are two disabled people, one of whom is holding up a large card with ‘breach of government’s public sector equality duties’. In the witness box is Therese Coffey, works and pension secretary. Alongside of her stands Boris Johnson and the new minister for disabled people, Chloe Smith MP. Coffey is saying out of the side of her mouth: “Psst Boris – any chance of us changing the law retrospectively again?!” Boris replies: “Consider it done Therese!”. Chloe Smith, with a sycophantic look on her face says: “My hero!”.

Our friends at Disability News Service have focused our attention once again on the National Disability Strategy and in particular its lack of any real support for disabled people’s organisations (DPOs).

More DPOs are closing as new figures provide further evidence of the “extremely hostile” environment they are facing. The disabled people’s and service-user network Shaping Our Lives (SOL) has revealed that 33 of its member organisations across the UK – nearly one in 10  – have been forced to close in the last two years. Also, the National Survivor User Network raised concerns about the fall in the number of user-led groups, due to austerity cuts and other trends affecting their funding.

These new concerns come after a report by Tracey Lazard, of Inclusion London, and Mark Harrison, of the Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance (ROFA), who warned that DPOs across England were in an “increasingly precarious situation”, with many existing “hand to mouth” with “little ability to carry out long term planning or invest in staff and service development”.

Becki Meakin, SOL’s involvement manager, told Disability News Service that the user-led sector was experiencing “an extremely hostile funding environment” at the same time that the pandemic has seen demand for their services soar.

She added: “The COVID-19 pandemic saw disabled people’s organisations leap to support people in their local communities, providing basic equipment … at a time when many of the people helping were also most at risk of COVID-19. The government was much slower to act, and without the work of disabled people’s organisations, many people would have been totally abandoned.”

Mark Harrison, a member of the ROFA steering group, said there was no recognition in the government’s “so-called strategy” of the plight DPOs were in.

He said: “We have to remember that Justin Tomlinson [the former minister for disabled people] created and then closed down a DPO forum after three meetings. There is no commitment from the government either to engage or co-produce with DPOs or fund DPOs. (Also) because there is no statutory duty around funding DPOs, it is inevitable that many have closed, and many will continue to close over the coming years.”

Read the full story in Disability News Service.

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Two white people sit upon sacks of money under a sign that reads: ‘Charities for the disabled – nothing about them without us!’. £100 notes and gold coins are also scattered on the floor by their feet. Opposite them stands Boris Johnson. At his feet are two Disability News Service pages. One reads ‘No money for DPO’s’ and the other ‘More DPO’s close due to lack of funding’. They each have a glass of champagne which they are raising in a toast. Boris is saying: “Here’s to maintaining the Status Quo!”. One of the charity people is saying: “Cheers!”

Only a tiny percentage of the views expressed by the thousands of disabled people who took part in the government’s national disability survey have actually been read by a minister or civil servant. The vast majority were read, coded and analysed by a so-called ‘topic modelling’ machine!

The new information which came as a result of a freedom of information request, has added fresh ammunition for disabled campaigners who believe that the National Disability Strategy – which was “informed” by the survey results and was published in July – has no legitimacy and should be withdrawn.

Most of the questions posed by the UK Disability Survey in January were restricted to multiple choice answers. But four of them allowed “free text” answers, and the Cabinet Office says it received more than 25,000 answers from disabled people to these four questions.

A freedom of information response from the Cabinet Office now says that about 95% of these answers were analysed through so-called “topic modelling”, which the government has described as:

“a method of machine-assisted reading of text data, used to identify topics from free text responses to open format questions”.

A report on the survey responses says that only 1,200 of the 25,000 (4.8%) responses from disabled people were analysed by human researchers through “manual coding”, and even then, only with the aim of producing themes and sub-themes for the machine.

The freedom of information response says there is no written evidence to show how many responses were read in full by a civil servant, a minister or a researcher, with the Cabinet Office telling Disability News Service: “No information is held on the number of responses read in full by a Civil Servant, Research [sic], or Minister.”

The much-criticised survey is already being challenged by four disabled people through a high court judicial review.

Doug Paulley, one of the four taking the legal action, said:

“I am unsurprised but dismayed that the government evidently doesn’t care enough about disabled people’s input into their strategy that they didn’t even bother to read most responses. The topics chosen were not directed by disabled people, the mechanism of survey was inaccessible to many disabled people and the restricted range of answers meant that the limited free text responses were for many the only way to put down what is really important to them. I spent time writing mine carefully; doubtless other disabled people did similarly – unless they were put off responding altogether due to the other issues.”

This underlines the claim by the disabled people taking the government to court that the survey was so deeply flawed that the strategy has no legitimacy and should be withdrawn and rewritten with disabled people.

The Disability Unit have declined to say how the government justified having the vast majority of the free text responses “coded” by a machine rather than read by a human being. Although, let’s face it, this government haven’t yet shown that it has anything resembling a ‘human’ approach when dealing with disabled people!

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A large grey Dalek is firing its laser gun at a document being held up by a wheelchair user. The document reads ‘feedback from disabled people’ and it is bursting into flames. On the floor around them are several more of these documents with burned edges. The Dalek has a sign upon it that reads ‘disability unit’ and is screeching at the disabled person: “Exterminate, exterminate!”

A disabled independent disability studiesresearcher is finding it disturbing that the Disability Benefits Consortium is failing to support the user-led disabled community in its call for an end to the seriously flawed Work Capability Assessment (WCA).

As the research lead for the Preventable Harm Project that she led for ten years, Mo Stewart points to the most recently published evidence that establishes a direct link to the death, despair and preventable harm of many thousands of disabled people who were evaluated using the WCA.

In a letter to Mark Hodgkinson, Chief Executive of Scope (who are active members of the Consortium) Mo expresses serious concern to learn that once again charitable groups like Scope, who claim to represent the disabled community in theDisability Benefits Consortium are lobbying for improvements to the WCA instead of demanding that it should be abolished. She told him:

“This simply demonstrates to the DWP that the Disability Benefits Consortium anticipate that the WCA will continue to be used. Most of us now accept that the WCA is a fatally flawed and totally discredited non-medical functional assessment – not a medical assessment – and is guaranteed to cause preventable harm to those in greatest need. In her letter to Hodgkinson, Mo reiterated that:

“The WCA disregards diagnosis, prognosis, past medical history and prescribed medicines and was influenced by corporate America, who have advised successive UK administrations regarding social policy reforms since 1992.

“In a recently published briefing written in response to the Health and Disability Green Paper, and the latest research paper accepted for publication by the Journal of (In)Justice International it is made clear that the WCA does not need to be improved in any way. It needs to be abolished to stop more chronically ill and disabled people being killed by the state.”

I’ll let you know when (if?!) Mo gets a response. I don’t think she’s holding her breath!

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Three giant red letters spelling out WCA are standing on grass against a clear blue sky. The letters are crumbling and cracking and are being repaired by three people. The first, a white male with an ID badge identifying him as being from the charity Mencap is hammering wooden strengtheners onto the letter ‘A’ whilst an Asian woman (from Scope) is wrapping white bandage around the letter ‘C’. The letter ‘W’ has a white male (from Leonard Cheshire) sat on top of it replacing broken pieces. A young wheelchair user is glaring at them whilst holding a banner with ‘scrap the work capability assessment’ printed on it. On the floor are three large pieces of card. On one is written ‘preventable harm project establish WCA directly linked to deaths’, on another is written ‘DPO’s state that WCA not fit for purpose’ and the final piece has written upon it ‘1,000’s die due to WCA process’. The man from Mencap is saying to the wheelchair user: “Just imagine where you’d be without the help of the Disability Benefits Consortium!”

Disabled activists reacted with horror after learning that the former government contractor ATOS could soon be carrying out “fitness for work” tests again, six years after being forced to withdraw from its assessment contract with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

ATOS withdrew from the contract with DWP in 2015, following years of negative publicity and multiple links between the actions of the company and its staff and the deaths of disabled claimants.

Now, because the DWP is introducing a major change to the way it commissions private sector companies to carry out health and disability benefit assessments – wanting a single supplier rather than the three it currently uses – disabled campaigners fear it could lead to ATOS once again returning to carry out these assessments.

Information released to Disability News Service (DNS) by DWP last year showed that, between April 2010 and April 2019, ATOS was paid more than £1.34 BILLION to deliver assessments. However, the failings of the assessment processes employed by DWP have been exposed through research and direct action by grassroots groups of disabled people, inquiries by parliamentary committees and concerns raised by individual MPs. The release of government statistics, television documentaries, and a lengthy investigation into the PIP assessment practices of ATOS by DNS further exposed their callous treatment of disabled claimants.

Paula Peters, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), which helped to force ATOS’s withdrawal from the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) contract six years ago, said: “It’s an absolute outrage that ATOS could be carrying out WCA’s again … especially as they have caused disabled people such dreadful fear and distress as a direct result of these assessments.”

Read the full story in Disability News Service.

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A small group of disabled people representing a variety of impairments and ethnicities look on in horror as the spectre of ATOS, in the form of a giant black cloaked figure with its arms raised in the air either side of its body, looms over them all. One of the disabled people is saying: “And just when we thought that things couldn’t get any worst!”                                                                                                                                      

Apart from the travel restrictions imposed by the Coronavirus pandemic, the government are now making changes to border policies which means that many overseas personal assistants (PAs), who disabled people rely upon for their everyday care and support needs, can no longer come into the country and work. 

We therefore need to get the government to make rule changes to allow overseas PAs to enter this country and work so that disabled employers can continue to live independent lives.

You can bring pressure on the government by filling in the online consultation . Responses should be evidence-based and where possible should provide data and/or examples to support your answers.

The deadline for submitting your responses to ‘the call for evidence questionnaire’ is 29th October 2021 so there’s not much time.

You can also write to your MP to lobby the government on your behalf.

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Two disabled people carrying placards are angrily confronting a man in a suit who represents a care home. The sign alongside of him reads: ‘Welcome to the Leonard Pressure Care Home’. One of the placards shows the DPAC logo and the other one reads ‘save our PAs’. On the floor at their feet is a notice which reads: ‘changes to border policy’. He is saying to the disabled protesters: “But look on the bright side – no PA support means that you can come and live with us!” Along the bottom of the cartoon is a statement that reads@ ‘tell the government to make rule changes to allow overseas personal assistants to enter this country and work so that disabled employers can continue to lead independent lives. Also write to your MP.

I’ve lost count of the minister’s for disabled people who have been given the boot following their participation in yet another ill thought out strategy for our future.

Just as Justin Tomlinson was about to face a common’s select committee to answer questions about his part in the national disability strategy debacle, another minister is pushed forward from the ranks to take responsibility for both the strategy and the disability benefits green paper.

Chloe Smith has been appointed to the post following the sacking of Justin Tomlinson, and now has to face not just the select committee but also a host of angry disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) who were excluded from participating in the strategy which will decide the future of disabled people in the UK.

As you’ll be aware, serious concerns were raised by DPOs about both the Shaping Future Support green paper and the National Disability Strategy in the days after their publication this summer. The new DPO Forum England – which represents 21 of the country’s leading DPOs and was set up after Tomlinson shut down his own advisory forum of DPOs – has now completed its detailed response to the green paper consultation, which closes on 11 October.

The Forum, which includes representation from Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, the Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance, Inclusion London, The Alliance for Inclusive Education, Equal Lives, Disability Positive in Cheshire, Disability Sheffield, and National Survivor User Network says in its response that it is “shocking and unacceptable” that the green paper “completely fails to address the inadequacy of the financial support available to disabled people who face multiple and complex barriers to employment”.

The response also says that the green paper is not based in “reality”, partly because it has failed to apologise to disabled people “for subjecting them to a hostile environment” which has caused “many deaths, large scale poverty, exclusion, and human rights abuses that have been examined in detail and condemned by the United Nations”.

The DPO Forum England’s response also stresses the important of independent advocacy for disabled benefit claimants, which it says would best be provided by local DPOs. And it also contrasts the UK government’s approach to reform with that of the Scottish government, which “has been framed to alleviate Disabled people’s stress and anxiety and a lack of trust in the disability benefits system”.

Read more about the DPO Forum England’s response in Disability News Service.

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The new minister for disabled people Chloe Smith is nudging the sacked minister Justin Tomlinson off a high ledge. Below him are lots of human skulls and bones identified as the Tory party political graveyard. She is holding a piece of paper on which is written ‘Tomlinson to answer for disability strategy fiasco to select committee’. Another sign at her feet reads ‘Chloe Smith MP appointed disability minister’. She is looking at you and is saying: “Tomlinson – No I don’t think we have anyone with that name working here!”