• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / News Archive / Survey provides more proof of barriers

Survey provides more proof of barriers

By guest on 1st December 2010 Category: News Archive

Listen

A new report has revealed new evidence of the barriers that disabled people face when attempting to participate in society.

The report, by the Office for National Statistics, provides interim findings from the Life Opportunities Survey, a major examination of the social barriers faced by disabled people.

The report suggests that 26 per cent of British adults – or more than 13 million people – would be viewed as disabled under the Equality Act, while 29 per cent of adults have an impairment.

Among its findings, the report says that 56 per cent of adults with impairments face restrictions in the paid work they can do – due to factors such as a lack of job opportunities or family responsibilities – compared with 26 per cent of adults without impairments.

It also says that adults with impairments are twice as likely to say their education opportunities are restricted (17 per cent) as adults without impairments (nine per cent).

And 45 per cent of households where at least one person has an impairment are unable to afford typical household expenses or make loan repayments, compared with 29 per cent of households without anyone who has an impairment.

The report also says that nearly a third of adults with impairments (29 per cent) face a barrier in accessing buildings outside their home, compared with seven per cent of adults without impairments.

Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, said: “The government must take this report very seriously.

“It confirms that disabled people are excluded from jobs not through any failings of their own, but because of the barriers they face in getting work.

“Far from being the ‘scroungers’ portrayed by some parts of the media, the great majority of disabled people who are out of work are prevented from working because of their condition, a lack of accessible and suitable transport, and the absence of decent job opportunities.

“The price disabled people and their families are paying is a life in poverty.

“Ministers need to focus on removing the barriers that prevent equal access to work, not on slashing the benefits system and making disabled people even poorer.”

The report is based on interviews with 18,000 adults aged 16 and over – with and without impairments – between June 2009 and March 2010. A full report will be published next autumn.

9 December 2010

Share this post:

TwitterFacebookWhatsAppReddit

Related

‘Muddled’ blue badge reforms ‘are to blame for renewal delays’
6th February 2015
UN debate will be reminder of true inclusive education
6th February 2015
IDS breaks pledge on PIP waiting-times, as tens of thousands still queue for months
30th January 2015

Primary Sidebar

Access

Latest Stories

DPOs ‘shocked and dismayed’ over survey, as government faces threat of legal action

Philippa Day: Secret DWP report reveals errors ‘that led to disabled mum’s death’

Philippa Day: Capita made changes to PIP assessments after young mum’s death

Philippa Day: DWP civil servant denies PIP ‘culture of scepticism’

Silence from police chiefs over face mask exemptions, despite gap in guidance

Call for urgent immigration action over care worker shortage

Documentary exposes hostility… and a need for widespread change in attitudes

Statistics regulator refuses to push DWP over impact of universal credit

Philippa Day: Young mother ‘took her own life after being told to attend PIP assessment’

Philippa Day: DWP phone agent ignored sobbing claimant who later ‘took her own life’

Advice and Information

DWP: The case for the prosecution

Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2021 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web