• 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 / Younger people will be drawn into web of DLA cuts

Younger people will be drawn into web of DLA cuts

By guest on 26th November 2010 Category: News Archive

Listen

Thousands of younger disabled people will be sucked into plans to slash spending on disability living allowance (DLA), campaigners say.

The chancellor, George Osborne, announced in his emergency budget in June that the government would cut the number of working-age people claiming DLA – and spending on working-age DLA claimants – by 20 per cent by 2016.

Campaigners believed this would apply to disabled people aged 18 to 65, affecting an estimated 365,000 people.

But the government has now confirmed that the cuts will also apply to disabled teenagers aged between 16 and 18.

Neil Coyle, director of policy for the disability poverty charity Disability Alliance (DA), said: “It is potentially another significant cut to the support available to disabled people and at a crucial time in their lives.

“The future of young disabled people is potentially being significantly undermined, despite the government’s insistence that disabled people are being protected through all of their reforms.”

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said the 20 per cent cuts had always referred to “working age” spending, which meant 16 to 65-year-olds, a position which “was not new and has not changed”.

The government has also admitted that disabled children in residential homes will be affected by the decision – announced in last month’s spending review – to remove the mobility component of DLA from disabled people in council-funded residential care.

Meanwhile, there is concern over the make-up of the advisory group the government has appointed to help develop its new “objective” DLA assessment, which will be introduced from 2013.

Of the group’s 10 members, only two are disabled people from disability organisations, but they are joined by two occupational therapists, a physiotherapist, a psychiatrist, a community psychiatric nurse, a social worker, a health visitor and a GP.

Coyle said DA had offered to advise on the new assessment – but had not been asked to take part.

He said it was “a little bit strange” for the government to suggest that disability organisations were fully part of “co-producing the way forward” when there were so few of them on the advisory group.

He added: “Given DA’s expertise and offer, it seems very strange that we are not part of that.”

The DWP spokesman said the group was “technical in nature” but its members had a “wide range of experience in working with and supporting disabled people, including two representatives of disabled people and disability organisations”.

He added: “We do want to hear wider views though and so will be consulting on our proposals and working with disability organisations throughout the development of the assessment.”

18 November 2010

Share this post:

Share on X (Twitter)Share on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

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

Anger over Labour’s ‘shameful’ silence on universal credit’s ‘deadly faults’

Activists welcome decision to reassess status of UK’s ‘pathetic’ human rights watchdog

Disabled HGV driver accuses ‘back to work’ ministers of hypocrisy over equality laws

‘Warrior’ disabled mum takes crucial step in ‘justice for Jodey’ fight

Disabled students told their access needs are ‘a nuisance’, survey finds

Music festival operator signs legal agreement after multiple access failings

Disabled people ‘must rediscover appetite for fighting oppression’

Ministers push ahead with ‘highly damaging’ plans on ‘fit for work’ assessment

DWP told to release ‘worst case scenario’ report on impact of errors on claimants

Flawed universal credit means government’s plans for sanctions ‘are inexplicable’

Advice and Information

Readspeaker

Footer

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

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

Copyright © 2023 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web