the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues
Ministers are poised to hand more than a billion pounds to discredited private sector outsourcing giants so they can continue to provide disability benefit assessments for another three years. The plans will apparently see a huge rise in spending on the […]
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has caused confusion after refusing to say if a newly-announced trial will test the idea of merging assessments for its two main disability benefits. Justin Tomlinson (pictured), the minister for disabled people, announced this […]
A disabled man took his own life after describing how a paramedic ignored the “sheer amount of pain” he was in during a face-to-face assessment, leading the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to remove his benefits and plunge him into […]
A disabled woman’s tribunal victory has given hope to claimants who cannot take part in face-to-face benefit assessments for impairment, health, or trauma-related reasons, but then have their claims ended by the government for “failure to attend” their appointments. Jane* spent […]
The performance of one of the government’s disability benefit assessment contractors has worsened over the last year and has remained well outside a government target it has never met, new figures have revealed. They show that the proportion of personal independence […]
The human rights watchdog has launched an inquiry into how schools are monitoring the use of restraint on their pupils. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) inquiry will discover whether primary, secondary and special schools in England and Wales are […]
Ministers have given the transport industry permission to use inaccessible vehicles for rail replacement services for another three months. In December, it emerged that the government was allowing the industry to continue to use older buses and coaches that do not […]
Thousands of disabled people could have had their benefit claims stopped unlawfully, campaigners believe, after a judge found that letters sent out by government contractors were failing to stress the serious consequences of failing to attend a face-to-face assessment. Upper tribunal […]
A new business that charges benefit claimants £100 to record their disability assessments has been accused of exploiting disabled people’s fears about social security reforms. Disability News Service (DNS) was contacted this week by the Liverpool-based business, which says it provides […]
The new Conservative government has described how it plans to fulfil the five major disability policy pledges it included in its general election manifesto. The details were included in a briefing document published alongside last month’s Queen’s speech by prime minister […]