Disability News Round Up By John Pring - Week Beginning 12/12/2011

12/13/2011 10:57:00 am BenefitScroungingScum 0 Comments

• Police are unlikely to reopen their investigation into the death of a disabled man who had suffered a hate crime ordeal lasting nearly 40 years, even though a coroner has ruled that he was unlawfully killed.
• Many of the country’s leading disabled activists have accused the government of “a total ignorance” of how a lengthy delay in deciding the future of the Independent Living Fund (ILF) is affecting thousands of disabled people.
• A transport minister has announced new funding of nearly £40 million to improve access to Britain’s railway stations.
• The disability movement is mourning the death of one of its pioneers, an academic and anti-apartheid campaigner whose work “transformed people’s understanding of disability” and laid the basis for what became known as the “social model”.
• The government will be forced to spend an extra £1 billion a year, after over-estimating how many people would be found “fit for work” through a controversial new assessment.
• Bosses from the country’s three leading cinema chains have been given a grilling by young disabled activists over their failure to make their screens more accessible.
• The first major survey to explore the barriers that disabled people face to participating in British society has produced a detailed picture of their experiences across work, transport and education.
• New fears have been raised about the safety of people with learning difficulties, after the care watchdog published the first reports from a national programme of inspections.
• Disabled protesters furious at the involvement of two of London 2012’s major sponsors have targeted the first “test event” held to prepare for next year’s Paralympics.
• The European Union’s (EU) leaders have been urged to take action to ensure disabled people do not suffer more poverty, exclusion and discrimination because of the European financial crisis.
• The government should consider introducing legislation to give disabled people a legal right to a personal budget, according to a committee of MPs.
• The government’s “Big Society” agenda could provide an opportunity to put into practice many of the “long-cherished principles” held by people with mental health difficulties, according to a disabled journalist and activist.