Outraged campaigners say a new government-backed benefit fraud campaign could expose disabled people to hostility and violence in their own communities.
The national campaign has been launched by the “crime-fighting” charity Crimestoppers and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), and centres on a poster featuring eight members of the public looking angry, shocked and hostile, [...]
The government will be forced to spend an extra £1 billion a year, after over-estimating how many people would be found “fit for work” through a controversial new assessment.
A report from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) says the government is forecast to spend an extra £1 billion a year on employment and support [...]
The government has refused to say how it will fund its decision to abandon plans to remove a key mobility benefit from disabled people in residential care.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said the move – announced today by the Conservative minister for disabled people, Maria Miller – would be funded through other measures [...]
A cabinet minister has been heavily criticised after again appearing to encourage national newspapers to run stories attacking disabled benefit claimants.
Last week, work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith was criticised by the work and pensions committee for “pandering to the Daily Mail” and sending out misleading press releases about incapacity benefits.
Duncan Smith protested that [...]
The government has finally admitted that large numbers of confidential medical questionnaires – submitted by disabled people as part of their benefit claims – are being opened by Royal Mail staff.
Disabled activists first suggested early last month that ESA50 questionnaires were being opened by Royal Mail, before being forwarded to Atos Healthcare, the company that [...]
MPs have accused the government of “pandering to the Daily Mail” over the issue of incapacity benefit reform, after it published a misleading press release about the results of its “fitness for work” tests.
Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith was asked to explain the way his department had presented the latest figures on the [...]
A sudden government move to cut the length of time benefit claimants have to fill in a lengthy medical questionnaire will make it harder for them to obtain the support they need, say campaigners.
Disabled people claiming employment and support allowance (ESA), the new out-of-work disability benefit, previously had six weeks to fill in the lengthy [...]
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has rewritten rules that were making it harder for disabled people to use a key employment support scheme to find and keep work.
The new rules had been highlighted by the Essex-based disabled people’s organisation ecdp in August after it was contacted by members and staff concerned by the [...]
The number of disability benefits claimants found “fit for work” by the government has fallen sharply over the last two years, according to new figures.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) statistics show the monthly proportion of people found ineligible for employment and support allowance (ESA) dropped from as high as 68 per cent in [...]
Government figures have revealed alarming new evidence of a slump in the number of disabled people granted funds to make their workplaces more accessible.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures show that just 2,320 “new customers” were helped by the Access to Work (AtW) scheme in the first quarter of 2011-12, an average of [...]
The UK’s largest provider of “income protection insurance” (IPI) has denied that it stands to gain financially from incapacity benefit reforms that campaigners believe it helped to influence.
Unum launched a major media campaign this year aimed at persuading more working individuals to ask their employers to provide them with IPI, which is intended to pay [...]
A government minister has held out hope that some of the most unpopular measures in the welfare reform bill could be removed or eased during its progress through the House of Lords.
The Liberal Democrat pensions minister Steve Webb was speaking to Disability News Service (DNS) after his own party members voted for major changes to [...]
Furious disabled activists are proposing a boycott of next year’s Paralympic games in London, over links between the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and the company that tests disabled people’s “fitness to work” for the government.
Campaigners have become increasingly angry at the Paralympic movement’s links with Atos, which is a sponsor and IT partner of the [...]
Disabled activists are planning a new wave of protests aimed at the company paid to carry out controversial “fitness to work” tests on behalf of the government.
Atos Healthcare has been targeted repeatedly by campaigners over the accuracy of its assessments, the way it treats disabled benefits claimants, and the generosity of its contract with the [...]
The company that conducts “fitness to work” tests for the government has been accused of an attack on free speech after issuing legal threats against four internet forums and websites run and used by disabled people.
The DWPExaminations and CarerWatch forums and the websites AtosRegisterofShame and AfterAtos have all been used by disabled people to swap [...]
Activists have attacked newspapers and the government over “appalling” coverage of the release of new statistics on claimants of out-of-work disability benefits.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) released figures this week showing the number of disabled people found “fit for work” after being tested by the controversial work capability assessment (WCA).
The figures actually show [...]
Government figures have confirmed a dramatic slump in the number of disabled people granted funds to make their workplaces more accessible.
Figures published quietly by the government this week show there were just 13,240 “new customers” helped by the Access to Work (ATW) scheme in 2010-11, compared with 16,520 the previous year, a fall of nearly [...]
Campaigners have welcomed the government’s decision to postpone the next parliamentary stage of its controversial welfare reform bill.
The bill has already passed through the Commons and a second reading debate was due to take place on 19 July in the House of Lords. But this debate has now been postponed until 13 September.
Many disability organisations [...]
The government has replaced the disabled director of its Office for Disability Issues (ODI) with a non-disabled civil servant, without advertising the post externally.
Tim Cooper is moving to a new job as chief executive of Advance, a supported housing and employment charity, after two years as ODI’s director.
ODI was set up in 2005 by the [...]