Disability News Round Up By John Pring - Week Beginning 21/11/2011

11/22/2011 08:34:00 am BenefitScroungingScum 0 Comments

• New evidence suggests that an insurance giant that could make huge financial gains from government reform of incapacity benefit played a much larger part in influencing those reforms than it previously admitted.
• A cabinet minister has been heavily criticised after again appearing to encourage national newspapers to run stories attacking disabled benefit claimants.
• The government has finally admitted that large numbers of confidential medical questionnaires – submitted by disabled people as part of their benefit claims – are being opened by Royal Mail staff.
• The government has agreed to reconsider a key aspect of its disability living allowance reforms, after disabled peers said the measure could cause serious financial hardship to people who have just become disabled.
• A disabled peer has failed to persuade the government to postpone the re-assessment of existing disability living allowance claimants until it has piloted the new testing regime.
• Government plans to reform disability living allowance and cut spending by 20 per cent will deny help to many disabled people least able to access alternative support, a disabled peer has told the House of Lords.
• The government has agreed to reconsider plans to completely change the name of a key disability benefit, after it heard the new name would be confusing, misleading and could add to hostility towards disabled people.
• The decision by the government to give the go-ahead for the first three special schools to be set up under its “free schools” programme has caused anger and dismay among campaigners for inclusive education.
• The latest of a series of horrific murders of disabled people has shown the urgent need for research into what motivates the men and women who commit such hate crimes, campaigners believe.
• A new report has highlighted the missed opportunities and failures of local agencies in the lead-up to the “truly abhorrent” hate crime murder of a young disabled woman.
• A disabled people’s organisation has failed in its first attempt to challenge the government in the high court over its sweeping cuts to legal aid.
• Two disabled men have won a high court case that challenged a local authority’s cuts to their support.