Choice and control have plunged under Tories, say government figures

The government is facing an embarrassing slump in one of the key measures of the success of its disability strategy: the proportion of disabled people who feel they have choice and control in their lives.

The results were included in the latest report from the Office for Disability Issues (ODI) on progress “towards the vision of disabled people living fulfilling lives”, through the Fulfilling Potential disability strategy.

They will be particularly embarrassing for the government because “choice and control” is one of the strategy’s six major themes.

When the Office for National Statistics began collecting the figures, in 2008 – two years before the Conservative-led coalition came to power – it found that 76 per cent of disabled people said they frequently had choice and control over their lives.

But the new report, published on 21 August by ODI – but not publicised with a press release – showed that figure plunging to just 65 per cent last year, a fall of more than 14 per cent (or 11 percentage points) in just six years.

Three years ago, the government said it wanted its Fulfilling Potential strategy to “tackle barriers to realising aspirations and individual control” for disabled people”.

A progress report published last year said that the proportion of disabled people who believed they frequently had choice and control over their lives had been fairly stable from 2008 until 2012, but started to fall in 2013.

Disability News Service has now asked the Department for Work and Pensions for more detail on how the proportion of people enjoying choice and control changed between 2009 and 2012.

The figures are likely to add fuel to concerns that the Tory austerity programme – including cuts to out-of-work disability benefits, disability living allowance cuts and reforms, the introduction of the bedroom tax, cuts to social care, and the closure of the Independent Living Fund – has damaged disabled people’s chances to achieve independent living.

Other figures in the report will also raise concerns, with the proportion of disabled people who said their employer was very supportive falling from 57 per cent in 2013 to 53 per cent last year.

And the proportion of disabled people who said their work colleagues were very supportive also fell, from 65 per cent in 2013 to 59 per cent in 2014.

Just 40 per cent of disabled people said the protection provided by the Equality Act was effective (a slight rise on the 39 per cent of 2013).

There was also a sharp drop in the proportion of disabled people who said they had no difficulties with public transport, from 74 per cent in 2013, to 67 per cent in the latest report.