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Showing posts from July 28, 2013

Is it the Government that is disabled in its logic?

Back in May, 2012 the Disability Rights UK (DR UK) report, Impact Assessing the Abolition of Working Age DLA , accused the government of ignoring the effects on disabled people’s lives of cutting working-age DLA spending by 20 per cent, or £1.4 billion a year by 2015/16. The report analysed the likely impact on disabled people’s ability to work, and their extra need for NHS services and local authority support. It said that the government’s claim that there will be no such knock-on effects is a “falsehood” and describes its failure to carry out a proper analysis as “irresponsible”. DR UK estimated that the extra costs could wipe out any planned savings, and even its lowest estimates add up to more than a third of the government’s intended savings. The report’s estimates range from about £600 million a year to as much as £3 billion. Today, 15 months later, it is reported that Atos, the privately-run organisation conducting disability tests since 2005 (and who have been granted ot