John Pring's Disability News Round Up - 6/07/2012

7/10/2012 09:10:00 am BenefitScroungingScum 1 Comments

• Labour’s shadow minister for disabled people has called on Lord Leveson to rethink his decision to prevent disabled people giving oral evidence to his inquiry into press standards.
• Disabled people are being prevented from having their “fitness for work” assessments recorded because staff working for the coalition’s private sector contractor claim all of the 11 recording devices bought by the government are “broken”.
• Remploy’s 2,800 disabled workers will stage two 24-hour strikes later this month, after an “overwhelming” vote in favour of industrial action across the company’s 54 remaining sheltered factories.
• Reforms to the scheme that provides funding for disabled people to make their workplaces more accessible could help end its reputation as the government’s “best kept secret”, according to a minister.
• Stricter enforcement of the Equality Act, better education, and even boycotts of companies and websites are needed to secure better access for disabled people to information and communication technology, according to a leading expert.
• Senior housing figures have spoken of their “shock” at reading a report which revealed how a “property crisis” is preventing young disabled people from living independently, relocating for work or even moving in with their partners.
• Mental health system survivors and other disabled activists have conducted a vigil outside the high court in London, as it considered whether to grant permission for a judicial review of the government’s controversial “fitness for work” test.
• Friends, family, colleagues and other admirers of the deaf peer Jack Ashley have paid tribute to the integrity, determination and “bloody-minded passion” of “one of history’s great civil rights leaders”.