I have been meaning and promising to blog about DLA and the coalition government for ages now, and just haven't had the time or energy. (Mainly the latter.) I want to broaden out the blog post to also include my fears about how the proposed public sector cuts will affect disabled people as well. So this is my first HareOnna Diversity blog entry (once my HareOnna Diversity website is up and running I'll have a blog on that.)
I'll tackle DLA first though. My big fears about the proposals for DLA are two fold. As I've mentioned on the blog before I'm concerned that the government is wilfully misunderstanding what DLA is actually for and the media are reporting about DLA in a very negative way. Secondly I am concerned that the mandatory medicals from 2013 for all DLA recipients will actually waste money and not save it at all.
DLA myths
There are a lot of unhelpful myths out there about DLA and disability benefits more generally. I did a simple search on the Daily Mail website for "Disability Living Allowance" and here is a link to the search page the vast majority of stories including the top stories found are about disability benefit cheats! When searching the Sun for stories relating to DLA it isn't much different lots of benefit cheat stories and the headline below comes in 3rd from top (below the story about a traffic warden disability benefit cheat)
Wednesday, June 23, 2010,The Sun
CHANCELLOR attacks benefits culture, vowing hundreds of thousands will go back to work"
So there are a couple of myths at work here, the first relates to disproportionate reporting about disability benefit cheats and scammers. This perpetuates a myth that there are hundreds of disabled people wrongly claiming benefits and playing the system. (Personally I think these scamming scrounger stories feed into 2 of the most damaging and pervasive negative stereo types about disabled people that there are "deserving disabled people" who need charity and "undeserving" disabled people who should be feared.)
The other myth relates to what DLA is for. The Sun's story equates cuts in DLA as part of the agenda for getting disabled people back to work. DLA is paid to disabled people regardless of whether they are in work or not. Its a "living" allowance that is supposed to meet the extra costs that disabled people face because society is not designed in an accessible way for them.
The DLA medical
The proposal to make all recipients of DLA attend a medical in 2013 perpetuates one of the other myths that it's easy to claim DLA and you don't have a medical. This is wrong because most people on DLA are called for medicals and all will have to supply detailed medical evidence from a specialist. Many recipients are called for medicals on a 4 yearly basis. I don't get called for medicals at the moment as the evidence provided by my consultant at Moorfields Eye Hospital explained that my eye condition will not change (though it could get worse.) Quite rightly and so not to waste money I am not called to attend medicals. If all those claiming DLA for a condition like mine which will not "get better" are called to a medical in 2013 this will cost the government more money not save it.
The other issue is who will carry out these medicals? Generally local GPs are used to carry out medicals for the benefits agency. When I was a Disability Employment Advisor in the jobcentre I would occasionally send someone claiming benefits to one of these Drs so that I could get clearer information about how their condition affected their ability to work. (With DLA of course they will have to look at how the impairment affects all of their life including work but also personal care and mobility at home and in all environments.) To be honest these GPs reports were pretty useless. Quite often the GP would have no idea about the clients medical condition and would have to recommend we send them to a specialist. On other occasions the Dr even if an occupational health expert would not actually be able to asses the client for the correct type of work. They'd be assessed either too generally or too specifically. For example if the client had been a crane operator the Dr would assess them for that job and say no they can't do that anymore. They would then recommend something incredibly general and not make any recommendations for reasonable adjustments.
I'm not saying that all Drs were like this but many were, those who are very good and specialised in this field are expensive to use and hard to find appointments with. So how are they going to cope come 2013 when these Drs will be considering a much wider remit not just the work environment?
This leads me on to my second concern
Supporting disabled people back into work
There is a link between people on DLA and the coalition government and the previous government's plans to get more disabled people into work. The previous government had commissioned some research last year into the work expectations of people out of work who also receive DLA. Below is a link to the research and a paragraph from the summary about work expectations of people on DLA who were out of work.
The relationship between respondents’ work aspirations and their DLA status was explored. Across the whole sample, 42 per cent of respondents said that they were either unsure about working in the future or that they did not expect to work again. Among the respondents who claimed DLA this figure was 60 per cent, suggesting that DLA claimants were further from the labour market than those claiming incapacity benefits without DLA. Those who reported that their health condition limited their activities either somewhat or a great deal were also more likely to hold pessimistic views about the prospect of working in the future.
When DLA claimants did identify things that would enable them to work they tended to mention measures related to in-work support.
These findings shouldn't be a surprise. Incapacity Benefit is paid to people "incapable of work due to illness" and includes people who have health conditions like broken limbs, those having major surgery, other serious but non permanent injuries or illnesses. Of course people who have long term impairments which we would think of as disabilities can also receive incapacity benefit if out of work, it is this group who are likely to also claim DLA. So if someone is claiming incapacity benefit and DLA their health condition or impairment is likely to be permanent so of course their expectations about work or circumstances changing will be less than someone who is recovering from surgery.
Similarly it is then no surprise that those who receive DLA are most concerned about receiving support when they are in work. Their conditions aren't likely to "get better" they are the people who will most likely need "reasonable adjustments" made for them when they return to work or those who will most need supported employment.
Whist the government are planning cuts across the public sector which will lead inevitably to the loss of jobs, will support for disabled people who want to work still be available? There are rumours that Ian Duncan Smith at the DWP wants to feed some of the money saved in benefit curs and freezes into supported employment. I think this is a must.
One of the other findings from the DLA and work expectations research was that more people in receipt of DLA said that returning to work would be easier if they could work from home. Hinting at some of the wider barriers that they face in returning to work relate to the physical activity of getting to work and the work environment.
The future of supported employement
At last weeks RADAR seminar on Sustainable Careers and the future of supported employment barriers relating to transport and travelling to work as well as the physical and attitudinal barriers within the work place were all discussed as being still very hard for disabled people to overcome. The seminar really brought home to me how serious the situation is for disabled people at the moment.
At the government's own admission disabled people are going to be worse off with changes to the benefits system. Many disabled people who are out of work would really love to be working but the barriers they face are just huge. There are some excellent examples of good practice regarding supporting disabled people to find work, and maintain careers that are meaningful and productive. These examples of good practice need to be supported though and learnt from.
The evidence from both Australia and America is that when benefits for disabled people are cut and adequate support into work isn't provided then disabled people just fall out of the system all together. You get greater numbers of disabled people back in care (costing the government more), larger numbers on the streets, more children in poverty. We don't want this to happen over here!
One thing said by Susan Scott Parker at the seminar which rang totally true with me and links back to the myths about DLA is that when it comes to disabled people and work and benefits there is still a pervasive belief (even if its not spoken) that genuinely disabled people can't work and so those disabled people who do work can't actually be "disabled." This is such a divisive and dangerous stereotype and yet one which seems to be at the heart of the rhetoric around getting people off benefits and into work and the DLA cuts.
I think that it is only when we have tackled prejudice and misunderstanding like this and the concept of "deserving" and "undeserving" disabled people that we can really start to achieve equality.
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