Labour fails again on co-production as it reveals plan to ask disabled people to rubber-stamp disability strategy

The Labour government is set to fail again in a key promise on co-production of disability policy, after revealing how it will only ask disabled people for their views on a key strategy after it has been drafted.

In July 2025, Sir Stephen Timms (pictured), the minister for social security and disability, announced that the government would “develop and publish” a cross-departmental Plan for Disability.

The press release described how this would set out “a clear vision to break down barriers to opportunity for Deaf and disabled people” and would support government departments in ensuring that disabled people’s voices were “at the heart of everything we do”.

But the summary of a meeting on 19 May between Sir Stephen and the chairs of the Disability Unit’s Regional Stakeholder Network – only published last week – show how the government will be dodging this pledge.

During the meeting, Sir Stephen said the Disability Unit and other government departments would instead develop the Plan for Disability themselves using “quantitative and qualitative data and evidence on the lived experience of disabled people”.

They will then consult on their plan later this year “to gather insights” from “disabled people and organisations”.

The Disability Unit is part of the Office for Equality and Opportunity, which was previously part of the Cabinet Office but was transferred in July to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) as part of a government restructure by the new prime minister, Andy Burnham.

Asked to justify the failure to co-produce the Plan for Disability with disabled people, a government spokesperson told Disability News Service (DNS): “The government is keen to work collaboratively with disabled people, disabled people’s organisations and the third sector to ensure their views and voices are used to shape the Plan for Disability.

“The government is already working closely with disabled people on a number of high priority programmes, including welfare reform, SEND reform and through co-producing the Timms Review.

“These engagement exercises will provide rich insights for the government on how it can best work with disabled people to ensure policy reflects their needs.”

But Linda Burnip, co-founder of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), told DNS the Plan for Disability development process “sounds very much like top down, with non-disabled people deciding what disabled people want/need”.

She said that this was “very depressing”, pointing to the government’s broken promises on co-production within the Timms Review.

Despite the repeated pledge to co-produce any changes to personal independence payment, DPOs have repeatedly criticised the government’s misleading claims around the review and co-production.

Burnip added: “I can only assume it will be more of the same, with us being invited to ‘man the doors’ at the same time as being told we can’t take part in any productive way.”

DPAC Cymru said this week that it had rejected an invitation from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to help “co-host” part of a Timms Review workshop in Bangor, north Wales, because the invitation amounted to “a request for glorified door staff”.

DPAC Cymru said information provided by DWP showed that co-hosts would be excluded from “deciding or designing workshop content” or “facilitating discussions during workshops” as these were “out of scope”.

Instead, their responsibilities would be to “provide additional staff” to “welcome participants to the venue and help them settle in”, “set the scene” at the start, and “thank participants at the end”.