Disability News Round Up By John Pring - Week Ending 11/03/2012

3/15/2012 10:37:00 am BenefitScroungingScum 2 Comments

• Disabled people’s organisations have backed government plans to withdraw funding from the remaining sheltered, segregated factories run by Remploy, but have called for as many of them as possible to emerge as new user-led social enterprises.
• The government has announced that 36 of the remaining Remploy sheltered factories are to close by the end of 2012, with the loss of hundreds of disabled people’s jobs.
• The government has promised to increase funding and support for the Access to Work programme, which it says will help thousands more disabled people into mainstream jobs.
• The Office for Disability Issues has angered disabled activists after stating that its own disability advisers do not have to notify civil servants if they work for the company set to make millions from incapacity benefit reform.
• The government has been heavily defeated in the House of Lords over plans to remove legal aid for benefits appeals.
• Britain’s best-known Paralympian has suggested that more should be done to “educate” the country’s elite disabled athletes about some of the real-life challenges facing other disabled people.
• The London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics are a “massive opportunity” to improve permanently the accessibility of the capital, according to Britain’s greatest Paralympian.
• Disabled people have explained why they travelled from across England to take part in a mass lobby of parliament calling for fundamental reform of the social care system.
• Local authorities, health bodies and police forces are frequently breaching the human rights of disabled people, according to a new report by the equality watchdog.
• The body that runs the House of Commons has pledged to improve access for disabled visitors to parliament.
• A project that adapts traditional English folk dances for wheelchair-users has been recognised by organisers of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.