Crippen Cartoons cartoons at the cutting edge of disability

As the UK welfare state continues to be systematically demolished by the Tory government and disabled people are labelled as work shy scroungers, I suspect that many of us are looking forward to the next general election where we’ll all have the opportunity to vote in an alternative government and put a stop to this tyrannical behaviour.

But wait. If you’re thinking of voting Labour, don’t forget that it was the Labour party under Tony Blair (1997-07) that introduced the 2006 Welfare Reform Bill that brought in the American social and labour market policies. This guaranteed that claimants of long-term out-of-work sickness and disability benefit were to be coerced and intimidated by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) simply for committing the ‘crime’ of being too ill to work.

Also, it was Labour again when Gorden Brown (2007-10) introduced the fatally flawed Waddell-Aylward biopsychosocial (BPS) model of assessment, adopted for the Work Capability Assessment (WCA).

And it wasn’t just Labour. The justification for the increased use of sanctions against disability benefit claimants was brought in by the Cameron-Clegg Coalition (2010-15). This caused a major mental health crisis for many disability benefit claimants.

So, that seems to leave us with the Lib Dems or the Green Party, both of whom make little or no reference to disabled people in their manifestos. In fact, I couldn’t find a single reference to disability on the Green party web site and the Lib Dems just seem to have tacked on ‘disability’ to their various equality-oriented sound bites without any real recognition of our oppression.

At the last count there were around 16 million disabled people in the UK which makes up a quarter of the total population. This also means we have a loud voice if we all decided to shout out together.

I seem to remember a film based upon a similar situation over in the States. Thousands of people spoiled their vote by printing ‘none of the above’ on their ballot papers which resulted in a minority party being elected in the rerun. I suppose that we could all do something similar and spoil our ballot papers by printing ‘Disabled people demand equality’ across them!

It’s a thought.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

A large stone edifice representing the Welfare State is slowly being eroded by Rishi Sunak and Therese Coffey of the Tory party who are attacking one of its pillars with a small pick and a large knife. Under the large main slab which has ‘Welfare State’ etched into it are two disabled people. They are both looking fearful as the main slab starts to move. Alongside an adjacent pillar are Iain Duncan Smith and Keir Starmer. IDS is saying to Starmer: “As you can see Sir Keir – it will only need a push from you to bring the whole thing crashing down!”

In yet another ruling against the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) the Information Commissioner John Edwards has ruled that Disability News Service (DNS) was not being “vexatious” when it tried to find out whether the DWP had tried to encourage a national newspaper to stir up hostility towards disabled people.

In a decision notice, the Commissioner has found that DNS was entitled to ask the department what communications it had with the Torygraph [sic] in the months before the newspaper ran a “toxic” and “divisive” article which included using their calculator to “reveal how much of your salary bankrolls the welfare state” whilst also claiming that millions were claiming benefits “without ever having to look for work”.

DNS had explained in lodging its complaint to the Information Commissioner that there were concerns that DWP was “engaged in a campaign to stir up hostility towards disabled claimants of benefits” to act as cover for its planned cuts and reforms which had recently been announced, which “could have fatal consequences”.

DNS had asked DWP last July for details of all meetings, correspondence and calls between DWP ministers and special advisers and staff of the Torygraph in the previous three months. But DWP refused to comply with the request because it claimed it was “vexatious”.

This led to DPO Disability Rights UK describing its coverage as an “incitement of hatred” towards disabled people and claiming the aim was “to vilify people who are too sick to work by angering those who are paying taxes that go towards Disability benefits”.

More than 300 mental health professionals signed a letter raising concerns about the “benefit calculator” story, calling it “a divisive narrative last seen at the height of austerity politics, which is likely to lead to an increase in hate crimes and have a profound impact on psychological well-being and societal cohesion”.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) received a “large volume” of complaints about the Telegraph’s “Exactly how much of your salary bankrolls the welfare state” article, but rejected claims that it discriminated against disabled people, because the article “did not relate to any specific individuals”.

Oh, that’s alright then?!

You can read the full story in Disability News Service.

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Two men in suits and with ID badges identifying them as members of the Press are standing alongside Iain Duncan Smith, the Tory Pier. IDS is handing them pieces of paper with ‘work shy disabled claim millions’ and ‘exclusive – disabled taking your money!’ On the ground is a front page of the Torygraph newspaper which reads ‘Useless eaters are ruining the economy ACT NOW. One of the Press is saying to IDS: “I don’t know what we’d do if we didn’t have your made-up stories about disabled claimants!” IDS replies: “People will believe anything if you repeat it often enough!”

The controversial outsourcing company Capita is facing questions over its data security procedures after it admitted sending a recording of a disabled woman being assessed for a disability benefit to another claimant.

This is not the first time, nor I suspect will it be the last time that Capita have been accused of sending information about one claimant to another. And in some cases, merging information from several claimants into a single claim. I have heard from several people who have received personal independence payment (PIP) rejections from Capita based upon a dialogue that just doesn’t fit their claim. It’s almost as if the interviewer had dropped their papers after a series of interviews and then reshuffled them into a random order!

I spoke to one disabled woman who, having had her first PIP claim rejected, tried again some 12 months later as her medical condition had worsened considerably. After the telephone interview she waited for the result, only to discover that she’d been rejected yet again because … and here is where the problem arose. The rejection letter contained information that clearly belonged to another claimant mixed in with some of her own responses.

Another claimant I spoke to had a similar experience when his rejection feed-back letter containing information that just didn’t relate to his claim. He is going to lodge an appeal, bringing up this anomaly as part of his claim. Regrettably, the disabled women I mentioned previously just doesn’t have the energy to fight her rejection and will probably try again sometime in the future if she feels stronger.     

Despite Capita being awarded another new government assessment contracts worth £565 million last September its suitability for that work, which will see it carry out hundreds of thousands of assessments a year for a range of disability benefits across the Midlands, Wales and Northern Ireland, has again been called into question.

Only last year, the information commissioner reported how “a large number” of organisations had reported breaches of personal data by Capita, following the company being targeted in a cyber-attack, while reports also emerged that it had been storing people’s information in a publicly-available online location.

You can read the full story in Disability News Service.

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A couple of Capita employees are folding assessment response letters into paper aeroplanes and launching them at a row of slots in a far wall. Each slot is labelled claimant A, claimant B, etc., and each paper plane is labelled A, B, C etc. One of them is saying to the other: ”See – some of them get into the right slots!”

Further to my theme of ‘you’re not being paranoid if the bastards are really out to get you’ we hear another disturbing piece of news from our friends over at Disability News Service (DNS).

Following yet another freedom of information request DNS has been able to report that because ministers have shelved power-cut action, this could have a serious impact upon the health of some disabled people.

An unfinished government report warned that national power cuts could cause “catastrophic deterioration” in some disabled people who rely on medical equipment in their own homes, but ministers still decided NOT to draw up plans to protect them.

The DHSC scoping paper – Rolling Power Outages: Medical equipment and vulnerable people – considered what advice was available for disabled people who rely on mains-powered medical devices at home and whether there was a need for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to issue its own guidance. This report was left unfinished last summer.

The report – significant chunks of which are redacted – admitted that “in a national power outage scenario it would not be possible to notify PSR households pre-emptively” that they were about to lose electricity.

DHSC decided not to draw up any guidance and to leave it to individual disabled people and their “care teams” to draw up plans for “how they can prepare for and respond to loss of power to their home”.

That conclusion was reached even though the document makes clear that some disabled people could be “at very high risk of catastrophic deterioration” if the power cut was unexpected or continued for longer than their equipment’s batteries lasted. It also warned of the “significant impact on vulnerable people who rely on the use of medical equipment at home for their health and care” if there were national blackouts.

The paper also admitted that there were significant flaws with the system of local priority services registers (PSRs), which are supposed to ensure energy companies provide “enhanced support to their more vulnerable customers”.

And the paper warned of “an issue” with understanding how many devices supporting “the more critical conditions” were being used in disabled people’s homes. It said this information “would be critical to have in the event of planned outages so that the government have a clear idea of the impact and where support is required”.

And it also admitted that in a “reasonable worst-case scenario” in at least some types of “national power outage”, services such as providing emergency power to those on the PSR who rely on “at home medical equipment” would “not be available due to the scale and complexity of the outage”.

It is just the latest attempt by DNS over the last 16 months – in the face of government resistance – to find out what plan ministers have put in place to protect people who rely on equipment such as CPAP machines, ventilators, oxygen concentrators, nebulisers and dialysis machines in the event of a major blackout.

Read the full report in Disability News Service.

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An elderly Black male is sat in a wheelchair with an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. Behind him are other pieces of electrical medical equipment. At his feet is a copy of Disability News Service with the headline ‘No plans to assist disabled when power cuts hit’. Standing in front of him is a white, bearded male wearing a ‘Vote Tory’ rosette and holding a single, lit candle. Attached to the candle is a sign that reads ‘Emergency Power Source’. He is saying to the Black male: “Never let it be said Sir that your caring sharing Tory Party doesn’t always have a solution to your problems!”

You can still register with the Priority Services Register (PSR) to receive (in theory) extra help and support should you experience an outage of gas, electric or water supply.

Disabled campaigners have secured a significant victory over a local authority that threatened to force people with high support needs into residential care.

The grassroots group Bristol Reclaiming Independent Living (BRIL) had secured pro bono legal advice in its battle to persuade the Labour run Bristol City Council (BCC) to abandon its draft Fair and Affordable Care Policy. BRIL had argued that the draft policy breached the Care Act, the Human Rights Act, and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The draft policy (PDF) had said that disabled people could be offered a “residential or nursing home placement” if “a care package to remain at home would substantially exceed the affordability of residential care”, and it had warned that “exceptions” to this policy were “likely to be rare”.

If no agreement was reached about such a placement, the council would only offer funding for direct payments up to the cost of the residential care option, with the disabled person needing to make up the difference themselves to cover the rest of the support they needed to continue living independently at home.

In its response to a council consultation, BRIL said the policy was “fundamentally flawed, likely unlawful, and would cause misery to many disabled people and their family and friends in Bristol”. It said many disabled people had experienced “significant worry and distress” since BCC published its draft policy last year, when Disability News Service (DNS) first reported BRIL’s concerns.

But just days after submitting its response, and following a much-praised column written by disabled journalist Frances Ryan in the Guardian, the council abandoned its policy.

This was confirmed in a letter to Bristol Disability Equality Commission (BDEC) from Cllr Helen Holland, the Labour cabinet member with responsibility for adult social care, who wrote that the council’s cabinet and its mayor had decided that “the policy will not be taken forward at this time”.

She said she had noted “the strong concerns that some Disabled people in our city and nationally have raised” about the council’s draft policy.

However, BRIL said it was still concerned by parts of her letter. They pointed out that disabled people were not to blame for the financial crisis, and despite recognising the harm caused by 14 years of government cuts to local authorities, they said “councils must still make choices with communities, and decisions that are both lawful and in the interests of people they aim to serve”.

They also feared that a proposed working group would not be independent or genuinely co-produced with disabled people as its terms appeared already to have been set by the council. BRIL also warned that the “allocation of support based on budgets, rather than need, may lead to unlawful decisions contrary to the Care Act 2014” and that by setting up an ‘inquiry’ led and controlled by themselves, with hand-picked representatives, is clearly an attempt to shut down any genuine dialogue or co-production.

Cllr Holland has since asked BDEC’s chair, Alun Davies, to set up a new group that would “consider how to build a system to fairly allocate Adult Social Care funding within the agreed budget to meet the diverse needs of the population”.

BRIL would like to thank everyone all over the country for their support and hope it will make other local authorities work in partnership with disabled people before doing anything that may harm their quality of life.

Read the full story in Disability News Service courtesy of John Pring – Editor.

NB: BRIL’s response to the consultation had included a legal position based on pro bono advice from Oliver Lewis and Alice Irving, barristers at Doughty Street Chambers.

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Rishi Sunak is standing holding a glass of champagne. Alongside of him are two people representing care homes. They are both holding up a glass of champagne whilst sitting on large bags of money. A sign on the wall reads ‘Care homes for the disabled – nothing about them without us’. Sunak is saying to them: “Here’s to maintaining the status quo!”. One of the care home owners replies: “Cheers”.

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.

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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!”

You’ve got to give John Pring, disabled journalist and editor of Disability News Service (DNS) his due. It’s been mainly down to his dogged pursuit of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that they have had to release ‘secret’ documents that provide an insight into their Machiavellian tactics and their callous treatment of disabled claimants.

Only last year DNS obtained a ruling by the Information Commissioner that DWP must release two secret reports concerning the abolition of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) and the affect it would have on millions of disabled people. In response DWP are set to waste thousands of pounds of public money fighting these rulings.

It is the latest example of how the department has used delaying tactics for many years to avoid being held to account over its own actions that have been linked to countless deaths of disabled benefit claimants.

The information commissioner ruled late last year that DWP should release both reports to DNS.

The first report was a written assessment of how the government’s decision to abolish the work capability assessment (WCA) would impact millions of disabled people and other groups protected under the Equality Act.

DNS had told the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) that although the WCA has been “closely linked to the deaths of hundreds of disabled people”, the plans to scrap it could lead to further deaths of claimants.

In a decision notice, the information commissioner said he “considers that DWP has failed to consider the strength of the public interest in the timely understanding and scrutiny of the decision to remove the Work Capability Assessment” and noted “a particularly strong public interest in disclosure of information relating to disability benefits reform”.

The second report describes the impact of DWP errors on “vulnerable” benefit claimants, which it has admitted could have a “negative” impact on its reputation. The report contains “worst case scenario” information that DWP has calculated about the impact of its errors on claimants, which it appears keen to keep hidden from the public, and probably includes estimates of how many claimants have been harmed by its errors.

The information commissioner added that there was a “strong public interest in the timely understanding and scrutiny” of the recommendations made by the report, and “in understanding DWP’s approach to preventing future errors and safeguarding issues”.

Read the full DNS article for additional information.

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Two suited males from the DWP are standing together with each holding a secret report folder. On the floor is a copy of DNS with the headline ‘DWP to waste thousands fighting release of secret reports’. Opposite them is Iain Duncan Smith who is holding the ruling from the Information Commission. He is saying: “Just ignore it – they should realise that we’re all above the law!”

A disabled women’s collective is looking to recruit fresh blood to help it spread the intersectional feminist values that lie at the heart of its groundbreaking work, in what it says is a “pivotal moment” in its history.

For the first time since it was founded in 2013, Sisters of Frida has secured funding that will allow it to pay members of its steering group. It is now calling for disabled women, including those who identify as queer, non-binary and trans, and women of colour, to put their names forward as potential steering group members.

It hopes the funding from London-based network Propel, together with an influx of new members, will help it develop leaders in marginalised communities, while keeping intersectional feminist values at the heart of its work.

Since Sisters of Frida was founded, it has shaped conversations in the UK and internationally about disabled women within both the feminist and disability rights movements. It has also highlighted the barriers faced by disabled women in a series of reports to the UN, and has supported work around the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

It also researched disabled women’s experiences of independent living during the pandemic; campaigned for changes to the law on violence and domestic violence against disabled women; ran a year-long peer-led skills development course for disabled women; and spoke publicly about the importance of intersectionality.

Eleanor Lisney, a founding member of Sisters of Frida, said she believed the collective’s biggest achievement so far had been to “promote the voices of disabled women and our visibility in issues related to disabled women”.

She said she hoped any recruits would bring “some freshness and passion” into the disabled people’s community through new voices and ideas, and “inspire and support each other to be leaders”.

They are particularly looking for disabled women with skills in fundraising, finance, strategy, organisational development and communications, and with a knowledge of intersectional feminist values and lived experience of disability.

Read the full story in Disability News Service.

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A caricature of members of Sisters of Frida standing together with their large hand-made banner.