disability news roundup by john pring - week ending nov 25th

11/29/2011 09:30:00 am BenefitScroungingScum 0 Comments

• The government appears to have left out any mention of the brutal cuts to disabled people’s benefits and services in a crucial report about how it is implementing the United Nations disability convention.
• Disability organisations have welcomed the second annual review of the government’s much-criticised “fitness for work” test, but have warned that progress on improving the assessment has been too slow.
• A disabled activist with one of the country’s leading self-advocacy organisations has spoken of her pride in taking her council to court over its decision to remove their funding.
• At least three disabled people’s organisations plan to submit evidence to a major inquiry to draw its attention to how some newspapers are stirring up hostility towards disabled people.
• The radical disabled people’s network DAN has warned the government to expect an imminent return to the kind of high-profile, non-violent, direct action protests last seen in the 1990s.
• Disabled activists have linked the conviction of a man who called his disabled neighbour a “benefit scrounger” to hostile stories and comments that have come from the media and the government.
• Organisers of a conference aimed at addressing disability poverty made it too difficult for disabled people experiencing poverty themselves to attend the event, it has been claimed.
• A government minister and executives from the company that carries out “fitness for work” tests on disabled people have faced angry criticism from campaigners at a national conference on disability poverty.
• A government-backed report is set to make it harder for disabled people to claim out-of-work disability benefits, while potentially delivering another lucrative assessment contract to the private sector. 
• A legal loophole is depriving hundreds of thousands of older people who receive care in their own homes of protection under the Human Rights Act, according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
• Campaigners have criticised the government for launching a new housing strategy without including any measures aimed at easing the shortage of accessible housing for disabled people.