Results matching “dla”

As the year reaches an end, I thought I'd crunch the numbers on blogging here on arbitrary constant.

Over the course of the year, there were 579 posts (average of 48 per month). The busiest month was May (due to the General Election) and the quietest was February (because it's a short month).

In January the site averaged 455 visits per day, rising to 1,102 visits per day by December 2010, averaging 755 visits per day across the year.

Comments were generally quiet on the site - for example, there were 76 in total from 1 September to 29 December.

In terms of content, the top 10 entries were as follows (excluding the index page, which received 9,298 page views):

1. The Budget and DLA: initial reactions - 8,098 page views
2. Cuts to disability benefits already being planned? - 2,210 page views
3. Poverty, worklessness... and DLA? - 1,858 page views
4. DLA reform consultation: Great Expectations, Worst Apprehensions - 1,316 page views
5. Independent Living Fund essentially closed for business - 707 page views
6. Paul Corrigan on the Health White Paper - 670 page views
7. Patient voice in the Health White Paper - 624 page views
8. Osborne: Welfare cheats are "like burglars" - 601 page views
9. Independent Living Fund (ILF) to close - 508 page views
10. Redistributing my tax rebate: £621.97 up for grabs - 499 page views

I have to admit to some pleasure at this, since nearly all of the above are original content based on areas of expertise we have here at arbitrary constant, namely disability and equality. They are also all posts that considerable effort went into, rather than posts that were done to keep the numbers up (of which, I'm afraid to say, there were a few).

Honorable mentions should also go to my two blogging compadres, Phil and Stef. Phil has done a brilliant job bringing some much needed erudition, arts and intelligence to the blog (I've hugely enjoyed his contributions to the YouTune series); whilst Stef, though sporadic, has brought true panache and thinking in his posts that others don't reach. I hope they'll continue in 2011.

For me, I've been thinking a lot about blogging, partly in light of the information gleaned above. I will post something further about how my approach will change and the content I'll be focusing on in 2011 in a separate post early in the New Year.

In the meantime, thanks to everyone who has read and contributed to arbitrary constant, either here or on Twitter. I can safely say it's been the best year of online engagement and discussion I've ever had, and it wouldn't have been the same without you.

• Great post from Natasha4Labour.
  (tags: disability cuts benefits coalition equality DLAreform)
• Independent Living Fund to be shut down by 2015
  Even the BBC picks up the ILF story. Richard Hawkes from Scope has it just right: "It's hard to see how phasing out this fund will do anything but narrow down options and push people towards greater dependence on the state."
  (tags: ilf cuts equality disability socialcare)
• Independent Living Fund faces abolition after 2015
  Community Care coverage of ILF abolition.
  (tags: ilf disability equality cuts communitycare socialcare)
• Independent Living Fund to close in 2015 - Adult Care Blog
  Vern kindly picks up my post about ILF.
  (tags: ilf cuts socialcare disability equality)
• Unit Costs of Health and Social Care 2009
  Hugely valuable bits of information.
  (tags: socialcare statistics research work healthwhitepaper)
• Society daily 13.12.10
  Kindly picks up my post about ILF being closed.
  (tags: arbitraryconstant ILF cuts guardian)
• Disability Bitch in 'PIP Ahoy!'
  Nice article from Disability Bitch.
  (tags: DLAreform disability equality benefits cuts)
• Right to Control
  Details of the Right to Control in Essex.
  (tags: essex disability equality work ecdp)
• ecdp: New right now available for disabled people in Essex
  News from ecdp launching the Right to Control in Essex.
  (tags: work ecdp disability equality choice)
• Disabled people get right to control services
  DWP's news release on the launch of the Right to Control.
  (tags: dwp choice personalisation disabiility equality)

A Written Ministerial Statement is being published today. It states that the Independent Living Fund (ILF) will be closed in 2015 (link to follow once it's on the Parliament website).

This has been coming (and it appears the Sundar Mirror yesterday was right). I blogged back in June that the ILF was essentially closed for business.

But that doesn't make today less of a shock. Others will highlight what a disaster this will be for the 21,000 ILF recipients, for the simple fact that it is. When taken in combination with the proposed changes to Disability Living Allowance, it's nothing short of an out-and-out attack on disabled people.

And to know who we're talking about here, note that the ILF delivers financial support to disabled people in order to advance standards of independent living. In order to access ILF, an individual must already get at least £340pw support from a Council and get the higher rate care component of Disability Living Allowance, as well as have less than £23k in savings/capital.

This means that ILF is focused on those people with some of the highest and most complex support needs there are.

Even when it had significant reputation problems in this area, the government can't speak with any sort of credibility on the topic of disability equality any more.

What the government says on disability issues is a world away from the reality of its actions.

(As an aside I understand in the Written Statement the government has said it will hold a consultation "next year" to determine what will happen to the existing users on ILF post-2015. That's a number of months for ILF recipients to worry, without even having the opportunity to have their say on the cut. It also gives the impression that the government's overriding concern is to simply save the ILF's £359m budget, and even then from 2015 onwards.)

Update to come later when I have more information. Update (7pm): The statement is now available from the ILF website. As I wrote earlier, it confirms the ILF won't exist past 2015 and the existing ILF users cannot be assured of receiving the level of support they currently get post-2015.

In the same breath as saying the government is committed to disability equality and choice and control for disabled people, the statement says that ILF is "discretionary" and is "financially unsustainable".

Instead, support for people with some of the highest and most complex impairments will most likely to be left to that well-known abundance of public money, local government.

• Final report of NCVO's Funding Commission (pdf file)
  (tags: toread funding voluntarysector ncvo money futures thinktanks)
• OPM Blog: Will the Big Society lead to more inequality? Seminar report
  Nice write-up from an OPM seminar on the Big Society. Great blog as well, by the way.
  (tags: bigsociety equality opm thinktanks)
• "This briefing summarises a Nuffield Trust report to investigate the use and estimated costs of hospital and social care services for large groups of individuals at the end of their lives, in three PCT/local authority areas."
  (tags: health socialcare research statistics healthwhitepaper)
• Ignore all of the input measures the DH quotes, this is the big findings: "The National Cancer Patient Experience Survey, one of the largest surveys of cancer patient experience, heard from 67,713 patients with a whole range of cancers. It reveals that 84 per cent of those who had received one to one support had significantly higher rates of satisfaction across all aspects of their care."
  (tags: dh cancern health socialcare statistics)
• Nice round-up of posts from Where's the Benefit?
  (tags: DLAreform DLA disability benefits cuts reform blogs)
• Truly brilliant post. Read every single word, carefully.
  (tags: DLAreform disability equality benefits cuts)
• Better access to work for disabled people
  "From today, disabled jobseekers will be able to find out immediately if they’re eligible for Access to Work support by completing a short on-line questionnaire at Directgov. If eligible, they will be able to print off a new "Pre-Employment Eligibility Letter" which will help build their confidence when applying for jobs and can be shown to prospective employers."
  (tags: AtW accessibility work employment disability equality dwp)
• National Statistics Online: Life Opportunities Survey
  "The Life Opportunities Survey (LOS) is a major new national survey of disability in Britain. The survey is being carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on behalf of the Office for Disability Issues (ODI)."
  (tags: disability equality research statistics work)
• Life Opportunities Survey: Office for Disability Issues
  Full overview from the Office for Disability Issues on the excellent Life Opportunities Survey, coordinated by ODI and delivered by ONS. Will blog on this soon.
  (tags: disability equality research work statistics ODI)
• Disabled people 'twice as likely' to miss out on careers, courses and holidays
  (tags: disability equality rights guardian)
• Cif readers on ... giving to charity
  Includes a small entry from me and details of the richrebate.
  (tags: guardian commentIsFree charity money)

Beyond misuse of statistics, sloppy presentation of data and lack of evidence, there are further points to be queried.

In a well-argued post on , Rhydian Fôn James has highlighted several major issues with the government's methodology in making the case for DLA reform.

It's a great read, and required for anyone who believes in evidence-based policy and disability equality.

(For anyone interested in the issues with the case the government has constructed with their dodgy methods, I modestly offer my post on DLA reforms.)

• (tags: localgovernment business work careers guardian)
• It's now officially 'unsustainable' to support disabled people
  Good article from Sharon Brennan in the Guardian on the DLA reforms.
  (tags: DLAreform dla benefits cuts reform equality guardian)
• Effect of benefit reforms on disabled people unknown, says minister
  Follow-up article from Community Care on the proposed DLA reforms.
  (tags: DLAreform, disability equality, benefits, cuts reform communitycare ecdp work)
• Introduction to Social Media (at ecdp)
  Some slides I'm using for a session with colleagues on Social Media later today. Nothing revolutionary, but useful nonetheless.
  (tags: ecdp socialmedia web2.0 voluntarysector)

People use the attendance allowance and disability living allowance to help them, under their own control, to create a quality of life for themselves that helps them to remain independent. That is precisely in line with the policy we are all trying to pursue. It is clear that if one narrowly focuses only on care needs, we will miss out much that goes to constitute well-being, and there is no health without well-being, and there is no independence, without sustaining people's quality of life.

That was Andrew Lansley, speaking in parliament during an opposition day debate on the topic of disability benefits for older people.

He was right then. I wonder if he disagrees with what his colleagues - now in government - are thinking of doing now?

Yesterday, I blogged on the government's proposed reforms to Disability Living Allowance. Just in case people haven't seen the consultation document or don't know where to access it, I have uploaded it to Scribd. A copy is embedded below.

You can also access the document from the DWP's website.

DLA Reform Consultation

The government yesterday launched its consultation on reforms to Disability Living Allowance. I blogged extensively on it yesterday.

One of the huge - and, as far as I can see, new - announcements was that the government is considering rolling out the cuts to DLA not just to the 1.8m of working age in receipt of DLA, but also those under 16 and those over 65.

Given this, I thought it was timely to recall some recent history.

As part of their Green and White Papers on adult social care, Labour suggested using £100m of the Attendance Allowance budget to help pay for the National Care Service. (To put that figure in context, the Attendance Allowance budget for 2009/10 was £7.505bn.)

In response to the potential idea (contained in the Green Paper), Andrew Lansley and Theresa May said this, launching a "campaign to protect Britain's pensioners":

Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Theresa May and Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley today pledged that the Conservatives would campaign to Protect Britain’s Pensioners against Gordon Brown’s plan to scrap the Disability Living Allowance and the Attendance Allowance...

Andrew Lansley said: "As ever with Gordon Brown you have to look at the small print. In order to set up a new National Care Service he is planning to take away vital benefits from the elderly and disabled... We don’t yet know what the Government’s plan for a National Care Service would really involve, but let me make it clear - it must not be funded by snatching benefits back from 2.4 million vulnerable pensioners.

"My pledge to you today is that we will Protect Britain’s Pensioners and fight against Gordon Brown’s plan to scrap benefits for the disabled.”

Theresa May added: “Labour has chosen to penalise one of the most vulnerable groups in our society for the sake of another eye catching announcement. As with every Labour initiative, someone has to pay and, as with many of them, it is the least able who are to be forced to do so.

“These benefits are a vital support for disabled pensioners and give them the chance to have an independent life with the freedom to tailor their care to their needs.

In his own Invitation to disabled people, David Cameron promised the Tories would be:

Protecting key benefits: the Winter Fuel Allowance, free bus passes, free TV licences and the pension credit. And unlike Labour, we will not scrap Attendance Allowance or Disability Living Allowance for the over 65s.

Speaking in an opposition day debate in parliament on the topic of DLA and AA, the then Shadow Disability Minister Mark Harper MP:

criticised the proposals for taking away the "control and independence" that these benefits gives older disabled people. "This is a step backwards and I hope the 39 Labour MPs who've already signed the motion will vote to protect the benefits so valued by older disabled people", he said.

Finally, Andrew Lansley cited approvingly the following early day motion at the start of an opposition day debate on disability benefits for older people:

That this House recognises the vital support that attendance allowance and disability living allowance provide for people with disabilities; notes that these benefits are intended to meet the additional costs of living with an impairment or long-term health condition; further notes with concern that approximately 2.87 million people in the UK who receive disability living allowance or attendance allowance are not eligible for social care services; acknowledges that some 20,000 individuals have petitioned the Prime Minister and many more have petitioned individual hon. and right hon. Members to ensure that these benefits are secured; welcomes the Government's announcement that disability living allowance for people under 65 years will not be scrapped; and urges the Government to ensure that attendance allowance and disability living allowance for people aged 65 years and over are secured and not abolished as part of any future reform of the social care system.

I just thought you'd like to know.

• London council to allow people to tape and film its meetings
  Great work from @se1.
  (tags: socialmedia london southwark)
• Thriving too: Big Society: Braddock and Levis - Inspiration or Cautionary Tale?
  Greatpost from @tessybritton.
  (tags: bigsociety blogs)
• Disability Living Allowance reform – public consultation
  Details of Disability Alliance's means by which they're collecting responses to the government's DLA Reform consultation.
  (tags: disability equality voluntarysector DLAreform dla benefits cuts)
• Disability Living Allowance Reform - Written Statement (Hansard)
  Written Statement to the Commons on the DLA reform consultation launched today.
  (tags: DLAreform dla aa benefits reform cuts disability equality)
• Disabled people claiming benefits face new medical checks
  Coverage from the Guardian on the DLA reforms.
  (tags: disability equality benefits reform cuts dla aa guardian ecdp DLAreform)
• Disability Living Allowance reform - DWP
  "This consultation seeks your views on the Government‘s proposals to replace Disability Living Allowance (DLA) with a new benefit – Personal Independence Payment. The Personal Independence Payment will continue to be a non-means tested, extra costs benefit. It will help disabled people remove the barriers they face to leading full and independent lives. This consultation asks for views to inform our policy for reforming DLA and introducing a new objective assessment."
  (tags: dla benefits reform cuts dwp disability equality DLAreform)
• DLA claimants to miss out in benefits shake-up
  Community Care's coverage of the proposed reforms to Disability Living Allowance, replacing it with a "Personal Independence Payment".
  (tags: dla communitycare benefits reform cuts DLAreform)
• Common Purpose Frontrunner
  "Common Purpose’s course for young leaders who are disabled or have learning difficulties will help 240 higher and further education students develop the skills and knowledge to become leaders at work and in society."
  (tags: leadership disability equality careers management)

The coalition government today published its consultation on the reform of Disability Living Allowance (DLA). The headline is that DLA is going to be replaced by a "Personal Independence Payment" (PIP) from 2013/14.

DLA has been in the news a considerable amount since the emergency budget in June this year, primarily because it has been the main disability-focused benefit the government has looked to cut. I've blogged quite a lot on the topic: see here, here and all posts here.

As such, today's consultation on the reform of DLA is of huge significance and interest because it provides far more detail and intent of what is planned for DLA. Below, I summarise what I think are the key issues. (Via delicious you can keep track of other reactions via my tag DLAreform.)

1. The foreword states that:

We are committed to a sustainable and fair system that allows people to work when they can and provides unconditional support to those who are unable to work (emphasis added).

The idea that the reformed DLA system provides "unconditional" support is palpably nonsense. Moving from the system (where people can self-assess) to one where the explicit aim of the reform is to reduce the number of recipients and spend by 20% is quite the opposite.

2. These proposed reforms suggests introducing "conditionality" into the system (paragraph 2.35). The idea is that as part of the PIP, recipients will be required to discuss their circumstances with a professional who offers advice and "helps them access specialist support". I'll explore the intention behind this in point 3 below, but introducing conditionality into the DLA process is a huge shift. Whilst there's been some debate about whether conditionality in employment benefits is right or wrong, introducing it in a disability setting - where people have already passed through so many tests based on their often intimate and personal circumstances - will feel to many like they're being kicked when they are down.

3. Throughout the reform consultation there are references and suggestions that DLA should no longer cover the sorts of support it used to, to take account of the fact that aids, adaptations and equipment are now more part of the general landscape. So, where the mobility test used to be based on ability to walk, the mobility test will now be based on being able to get around - and if there's a wheelchair involved, that will suffice.

The question of how that wheelchair has been paid for - private money, health money, social care money - appears not to matter, which is obviously wrong. If an individual has paid for it, then they clearly had a mobility need. If the NHS or a Council has paid for it, then they obviously thought there was a mobility need. Though it seems innocuous, the intention of the conditionality above will actually require a potential recipient of DLA to explore what "specialist support" is avaliable apart from DLA. By introducing this, and the very narrow focus on what support is in place at the time of assessment, the impression is created that, so long as the need isn't met by the DLA budget, it doesn't matter where it's met from. What wider impact this will have on NHS and social care spending is currently unknown, but I'll bet they won't be pleased by this subtle but important chance.

4. The idea that DLA itself is a barrier for disabled people into employment (para 1.19) just isn't credible. Indeed, the DWP's own evidence (pdf) suggests otherwise. Even if we take this assertion at face value, I'm already hearing of restrictions of what Access to Work will and won't fund to enabled disabled people into employment. Thus, with the government also seeking to reduce what proportion of DLA is spent on aids, equipment etc., these two changes combined means the government significantly risks undermining its own policy of supporting people back into work.

5. The reform paper paints a very confused picture on costs and numbers. It states that over 3m people receive DLA - of which 1.8m are of working age (16-64) - with total spend this year being "forecast as £12bn". But the Dilnot Commission, based in the Department of Health, says that DLA for 16-64 year olds costs £5.487bn (in 2009/10). Furthermore, the DWP's own figures said that DLA cost £6.2bn in 2009/10. In the emergency budget, the government said they would save £1bn (or 20%) of the DLA budget, suggesting they were using the £5.487bn figure. If that's right, why quote the £12bn figure? (Quite aside from this, the government fails to mention that Attendance Allowance currently costs £7.505bn. More on that another time.)

6. A massive change - different to anything we've heard before - is that the DLA reforms are to extend beyond working age to cover children and those over 65 (paras 0.3, 1.14 and throughout). I don't recall the government saying that the DLA cuts will affect this group of 1.2m people, in either the CSR or the Budget. If this is true, the impacts will be huge (and go some way to explaining why the £12bn figure above is included.)

7. There is a mixed picture on the role of self-assessment. The government appears not to trust people applying for DLA under the current system, but thinks that self-review under the new one is fine (para 2.32). If self-assessment in social care, with its considerably larger budget, is acceptable (under the banner of personalisation), then why isn't it acceptable for DLA assessments?

8. In paragraph 1.10, the reform consultation states that "measuring each individual's expenditure would be administratively complex and expensive". And yet they think that checking everyone's needs won't be.

9. Paragraph 2.4 notes that the PIP will require a "new, fairer, objective assessment, which will allow [the government] to identify those who face the greatest need, in a more consistent and transparent manner". Transparency is, of course, to be welcomed. I will therefore look forward to full details of the contract between ATOS - who carry out the medical assessments for DLA on behalf of DWP - and the DWP, along with all its financial information, performance information and details of targets etc.

10. Paragraphs 2.33 and 2.34 talk about the "penalties" that will be put in place for individuals who don't report changes in their circumstances. It's a shame the report didn't take the opportunity to note that the fraud rate for DLA is 0.5% - a rate significantly lower than Income Support (2.9% fraud rate), Incapacity Benefit (1%) and Jobseekers Allowance (2.8%). Indeed, it's lower than the office error rate for the DWP, which stands at 0.6% (data: ).

It's only fair to note that there are some good points in the reform paper:

1. Paragraph 2.18 talks about bringing the definition of those who could potentially get DLA into line with the legal definition of disability. This makes sense.

2. Maintaining DLA as a non means-tested, non-taxable, non-NI contributions dependent benefit is right, as is recognising its role as a passport to many other publicly-funded services.

3. Looking to align assessments across benefits, health and social care, and sharing information (with permission) across professionals about those assessments, could be a big win, for both individuals going through the process and to streamline administration (para 0.11). In its Right to Control work (on which I've written a series of posts) the government is developing an infrastructure that could enable this to happen.

4. Throughout this document, the government has finally and explicitly acknowledged that DLA is "not an income-replacement benefit for those who are out of work due to disability" (para 1.1). It's just a shame that the government did so much to encourage the perception of disability as an out-of-work benefit.

Overall, I'm afraid to say there is a lot for disabled people to be worried about in these proposals. There is no getting away from the fact the government has decided it wants to spend less on DLA and is justifying where it is going to draw the line to save the 20% they're looking for.

The most superficial of all the proposals is renaming what has become the potent "Disability Living Allowance" and replacing it with a "Personal Independence Payment", which has the unfortunate acronym PIP, which puts me in mind of Great Expectations.

The problem being, of course, that the government's reforms aren't something that disabled people can think of in terms of hope and promise. Instead, the reforms confirm the very Worst Apprehensions that we held over these reforms.

• =The Equality Bill: how disability equality fits within a single Equality Act
  Report from Work and Pensions Committee in 2008/09 session.
  (tags: disability equality legislation selectcommittee reports)
• House of Commons Hansard Debates for 30 Nov 2010
  Debate on changes to DLA, specifically the mobility component for people in a care home.
  (tags: dla benefits disability equality reform cuts)
• International Open Data Hackathon
  (tags: opendata transparency web2.0 gov2.0)
• Employees with social media access more likely to talk you up
  Nice (via @tiffanystjames).
  (tags: socialmedia work)

Sedgemoor CAB's #CAB7Days Twitter "experiment" - in which they every enquiry they processed in 7 days - has now come to an end, and what a fascinating and illuminating experiment it has been.

Everyone roughly knows what Citizens Advice Bureaux do, but this has done a great job of demonstrating the scale and scope of the difference they make across so many facets of life. Indeed, Sedgemoor's own stats of the week show the range of advice they provide:

• 26 employment cases tweeted last week, covering redundancy, dismissal, grievance, incorrect pay, disciplinary
• 7 health related issue tweeted, covering mental health issues, support needed, depression through job loss,debt and ralationship collapse
• 8 relationship breakdown cases tweeted (including many more not tweetable). Cases included divorce, mediation, children, housing, debts, benefits, solicitors
• 15 housing issues tweeted, including homeless, rent arrears, lack of affordable housing, slow market, possession hearings, housing lists
• 34 debt issues tweeted, most of which were new cases from very distressed clients. Topics covered included threatening letters, bailiffs, bankruptcy, Debt relief orders
• 47 benefit enquiry tweets last week, covering mainly ESA, DLA, JSA mainly on topics such as appeals, applications, payments, entitlements.

It's no surprise that benefits queries and debt issues were the top issues - this is the reality of the day-to-day life of many, many people.

It's quite right, I think, that Sedgemoor CAB is using the brilliant profile its established as a platform to promote their People's Millions bid.

This raises the intriguing question of what their local Council has made of the tweets and the coverage Sedgemoor has gained. Though I don't think this type of thing makes any organisation immune from the financial challenges local authorities and the voluntary and community sector faces, I'll wager that this significantly influences the Council's decision on Sedgemoor's ongoing funding (for the better).

Thus, if I were the CAB's contact at the Council, I'd (a) congratulate them, (b) get them to write lessons learnt for other organisations to benefit from, and (c) get others to promote their work and impact in a similar fashion. By doing so, maintaining or increasing Sedgemoor's core grant or contract value for 2011/12 can be justified.

For the voluntary and community sector more generally, I think this is one clear demonstration of how transparency can help the sector influence decision makers and show impact.

It's been a great experiment, and well done to everyone involved.

(Let's hope we're not inundated with tens of organisations doing the same!)

I blogged yesterday on the public's support for out-of-work benefit reforms. Bizarrely enough the same survey included a question on Disability Living Allowance (DLA), even though DLA isn't an out-of-work benefit.

Leaving this point and what it represents to one side (aside from one implication, which I'll highlight below), the results were as follows:

• 69% of people support more stringent testing for people receiving Disability Living Allowance
• Broken down by voting intention, 86% of Tories support more stringent testing, and 70% of Lib Dems. The figure is 58% for Labour voters
• Some 76% of social grade ABC1s support it, and 58% of C2DEs
• Taking the opposite view, 20% of people oppose the introduction of more stringent testing for people receiving DLA
• Broken down by voting intention, some 6% of Tories oppose more stringent testing, 22% of Lib Dems and 32% of Labour supporters
• Around 14% of ABC1s oppose more stringent testing and 27% of C2DEs oppose it.

Once again, the similarity between Tory and Lib Dem views on the case for more stringent testing is interesting, though the Tories are alone in their opposition to more stringent testing - just 6% of them oppose it.

Now - and here's the implication I alluded to earlier - it could be the case that people are confusing Disability Living Allowance as an out-of-work benefit. It isn't (more here). If people knew what DLA was actually for, I would hope they wouldn't hold the same views as they apparently do above.

But taking the findings at face value, nearly 7 in 10 people support stricter testing, which is more than enough for the government's proposals on DLA to pass relatively smoothly through the machinery of government.

If this is the case, then this should be of significant concern to people who support disability equality, and should be taken into account in the campaigning or influencing approach taken to opposing the effective cuts, or attempts to minimise their damaging effects.

The BBC was this morning reporting on the results of a survey by the Residents and Relatives Association. The top finding was that some 40,000 older people in care homes are "socially isolated".

We shouldn't be surprised by this, and the aim of any effective social care system should be to keep individuals out of care homes for as long as possible. Not only does this cost the tax payer less money, but it means the individual (and their families) are happier.

There are 5 relevant points to make about this finding in the context of the current political climate.

1. In the Comprehensive Spending Review, George Osborne said he is going to end the payment of the mobility component of the Disability Living Allowance for people in residential care. This is a vital support for people who get it since it enables them to access opportunities in their local community or, even at the most fundamental level, move freely around the care home. Thus, this decision on the mobility component of DLA will exacerbate people's social isolation in care homes.

2. As has been well documented, the coalition government is looking to introduce medical tests for Disability Living Allowance from 2013, with a view to saving approximately 20% of the current DLA bill. DLA is a vital non-work related benefit that supports people to meet the extra costs of disability. If this support is removed it will harm people's ability to live independently and thus increases the likelihood of people moving to a care home earlier than they or their families may wish them to.

3. The Independent Living Fund is currently closed to new applicants. The ILF precisely supports people eligible for social care support to live independently in their own homes and communities, indeed going further than DLA does in providing this targeted support. Whilst the future of the ILF remains in doubt, this is another factor that increases the likelihood of people moving to a care home.

4. In the run up to the general election, the Tories suggested individuals make a one-off payment of £8,000 and can then live in whichever care home they wanted to. I was worried at the time that the Tories thought the solution to providing social care for people is to move them out of their own home and into residential care. I hope today's finding continues to convince them of the error in that thinking.

5. The coalition government has said that the take-up of cash payments by individuals - taking the cash equivalent of a service provided by the local authority in order to take more choice and control over how care and support is arranged - has not happened fast enough. And they're right. Supporting people to take more of the care and support as cash payments will enable people to live independently, in their own homes or communities, and therefore not be subject to the social isolation prevalent in care homes.

That there is social isolation for 40,000 people in care homes is not surprising to anyone with a passing knowledge of the social system. To date, the coalition government's decisions on a range of disability benefits and funding streams makes it more and not less likely that people will be in care homes, and so face the possibility of social isolation.

• Courts reluctant to intervene over care for elderly and disabled
  Good legal summary of this worrying case (via @mrsblogs).
  (tags: socialcare cuts law disability equality)
• Great summary - including social media stuff - from @fergusbisset of the event we (ripfa and ecdp) ran on User-Led Organisations in Coventry yesterday.
  (tags: ULOs userengagement socialcare ecdp work ripfa)
• Appeal court ruling clears way for councils to cut social care services
  A microcosm of all the issues facing social care, from funding, quality of assessment, process for assessment, decision making, user engagement, local authority mentality and so on and so forth. Let's hope this isn't a green light for wholesale removal of services...
  (tags: socialcare cuts localgovernment)
• From Publisher to Platform: 14 ways to get benefits from social media
  "This is the second of two presentations on how we work digitally at the Guardian."
  (tags: guardian media socialmedia)
• Controlling innovation in media organisations
  "This is the first of two presentations on how we work digitally at the Guardian."
  (tags: guardian socialmedia media)
• Personal budgets 'pose financial risk for councils'
  (tags: personalbudgets personalisation socialcare localgovernment communitycare)
• DLA cut rouses anger of disability movement
  No shit. Shouldn't just anger people interested in disability equality - a measure of a society is how it treats everyone, and not just those who are better off.
  (tags: disability equality DLA benefits cuts georgeosborne)
• Care Funding Commission's criteria
  Better late than never...
  (tags: funding socialcare commission dh health reform)
• Care funding commission sets out criteria for reform
  (tags: communitycare socialcare reform publicsector health)

I could hardly believe my eyes when I read this, in an article titled (without apparent irony) "To cut with principle is the right approach":

There will certainly be other cuts to the welfare budget. The guiding principle behind them seems to be the reintroduction of the distinction between the “deserving” and the “undeserving” poor. This is not meant to be an absolute distinction, still less one which damns those on the wrong side of it as worthless or inadequate. But it is intended to be a way of making decisions about who is entitled to the state’s resources in a time of scarcity. That is why the Coalition is going to target Disability Allowance: the aim is to force 400,000 of those claiming that benefit back into paid employment.

It is not principled to willfully confuse Disability Living Allowance with an out-of-work benefit.

It is not principled to think that "forcing" people back into paid employment is a reasonable thing to do.

And it is not principled to imply that some disabled people may form part of any "undeserving poor".

(If you prefer your stories with a little more truth and facts in them, you may be interested in 3 posts on the topic of Disability Living Allowance we've written previously: 1, 2, 3.)

A welfare cheat is like a mugger who robs you on the street

That was George Osborne in yesterday's News of the World (behind a paywall) talking about welfare cheats.

It's churlish to note the use of his language, though that's not going to stop me, because it was David Cameron who said that

We will be challenging lobby groups that are making inflammatory arguments. We will take their claims on. We will highlight when it is irresponsible to make statements like that.

and Osborne has form.

Osborne is being inflammatory and irresponsible - and his arguments are part of a narrative that is willfully ignorant and deliberately manipulative (as I've highlighted here and here) - so it's down to us to continue take his claims on.

I'll start by reminding people that most disability benefits are not work- or sickness-related. For example, Disability Living Allowance (DLA) helps with the additional costs of disability, primarily related to personal care. It is for people under 65, though you can continue to be in receipt of DLA over the age of 65 if you have it before you are 65. (Attendance Allowance is the equivalent for people over 65. Both are non-means tested.)

And rather than pejorative statements that play to Osborne's prejudices, let's introduce some facts:

• More disabled people live in relative poverty than non-disabled people, and are less likely to be in employment or have education qualifications than non-disabled people of the institutional barriers they face in society. Calling disabled people welfare cheats doesn't solve the issue. It ignores it.
• 80% of DLA claimants are in the bottom 60% of income, meaning more precisely that DLA is targeted exactly at those disabled people who live in relative poverty. This is not a lifestyle choice. No one chooses to live in relative poverty.
• The fraud rate for DLA is 0.5%. For Income Support that figure is 2.9%, for Incapacity Benefit it's 1% and for Jobseekers Allowance it's 2.8%. The DWP's own administrative error rate is 0.8% (stats via ). For a benefit specifically focusing on disabled people, does that sounds like widespread fraud?

Feel free to add your own thoughts on Osborne's fatally damaging narrative. If you're interested in this topic, do also check out , Anne Wollenberg, Louise Bolotin and , all of whom make great and thoughtful contributions to this issue.

• PMQs, 13 October 2010
  Worrying quote from Ed Miliband: "Let me turn to the issue of benefits and say to the Prime Minister that we will work with him on his reforms to disability living allowance and to sickness benefits, because they are important reforms and they need to be done."
  (tags: disability dla equality reform cuts benefits edmiliband pmqs)
• Ten questions to ask about the Spending Review - The King's Fund
  Including no.6: "Although different councils will start from different financial positions, with some more able to draw on reserves and find greater productivity improvements, the scale of the reduction in their income is likely to have significant implications for social care. Councils will inevitably have to consider increasing user charges and tightening (already fairly tight) eligibility criteria for access to services."
  (tags: socialcare csr2010 cuts coalition kingsfund thinktanks)

• Acevo calls on government to scrap 'fair deal' guidance
  (tags: merger pensions guardianpublic)
• (tags: socialmedia peersupport)
• Council services - there's a £230m saving ap for that
  Hmm. Increased productivity of "£230m" is a very different thing to savings of £230m.
  (tags: thinktanks LGA localgovernment)
• Many fathers get depressed after having children
  "One in five men become depressed after becoming fathers as they juggle lack of sleep, extra responsibilities and a changed relationship with their partners, new research shows. By the time their first child is 12, 21% of fathers have had at least one episode of depression."
  (tags: mentalhealth depression baby personal)
• "A collection of photographs and reports on abandoned & derelict sites throughout the UK." (via )
  (tags: architecture history photography)
• Unlocking the Past - Royal Albert Hospital, Lancaster
  "An archive, a collection, of stories and photographs of former residents and staff of the Royal Albert Hospital, Lancaster - a large Victorian long stay institution for people with learning difficulties which closed its doors in 1996." (via @mrsblogs)
  (tags: learningdisability disability history)
• Disabled homeowners fear repossession as mortgage interest payments cut
  "Disability and housing organisations are accusing the government of potentially forcing thousands of disabled homeowners into arrears or even having their properties repossessed because of cutbacks in mortgage benefits and care packages."
  (tags: disability housing equality cuts budget)
• Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives & Museum Services
  "Bethlem Royal Hospital is the original ‘Bedlam’, one of the world’s oldest hospitals for the treatment of mental illness."
  (tags: mentalhealth history architecture)
• South London's Heygate estate mourned by locals - and Hollywood
  (tags: architecture london)
• A commissioner’s guide to developing and sustaining user-led organisations
  Online guide from SCIE, to which I was a contributing author.
  (tags: socialcare personal writing ULOs ecdp)
• Wishful thinking won't bring equality for disabled people
  Exactly the right point from Zoe Williams - though people think it is, the job is not done for disability equality in this country.
  (tags: disability equality legislation guardian)
• Designing Obama online for free
  Literal design, rather than the political design that the actual design has to reflect.
  (tags: design barackobama USA politics)