John Pring's Disability News Service - Week Ending May 18th 2012

5/27/2012 01:26:00 pm BenefitScroungingScum 0 Comments

• A landmark legal case could help thousands of disabled adults who are not receiving the care and support they need from their local authority.
• A senior Labour shadow minister has launched a stinging attack on the government’s record on disability rights, and announced plans to work with disabled people to develop new policies that will “turn rights into reality”.
• The government has caused alarm among campaigners by extending its assault on the laws that protect disabled people and other minority groups from discrimination.
• Cuts to the funding and responsibilities of the equality watchdog could mean that its specialist disability committee is under threat, its disabled commissioner has warned.
• A landmark court ruling is set to help disabled campaigners fight discrimination within the benefits system.
• Disabled campaigners are likely to launch legal action against the government over its anti-inclusion education policy.
• The government is to push ahead with plans to make it harder for disabled children to attend mainstream schools, detailed plans published this week have revealed.
• Disabled people are still facing a “bleak picture” in their struggle to secure the support they need in the workplace, according to a new report from the equality watchdog.
• Some wheelchair-accessible vehicles (WAVs) are potentially unsafe for passengers or drivers travelling in their wheelchairs, and should never have been allowed on the roads, claim campaigners.
• Significant parts of the disability movement have backed disabled Remploy workers who are set to lose their jobs because of government plans to shut their sheltered factories.
• GPs across Britain look set to call on the government to abandon its much-criticised “fitness for work” tests, giving a huge boost to disabled activists who have fought for them to be scrapped.
• The Treasury may have failed in its legal duty to consider how some of the cuts announced in its 2010 spending review would impact on disabled people, the equality watchdog has concluded.
• A cheerleader, an athlete and an artist are among the first disabled people chosen to take part in this summer’s Paralympic torch relay.