Spatacus Report Forces Reform Changes to Wellfare Bill

A group of disabled people have taken upon themselves the burden of discovering the truth to the UK Government's consultation on its planned changes to Disability Living Allowance as part of the Welfare Reforms Bill.

This report can be found here in full and here in easy read format.

It has been dubbed the Spartacus Report (#spartacusreport), in reference to the idea of solidarity in adversity.

The task, taken up by 9 people, was to go through and analyse over 500 responses to the consultation. These were only made available to them after a freedom of information request was submitted for each response.

Among the report's conclusions are that:

• Only seven per cent of organisations which took part in the consultation were fully in support of plans to replace DLA with PIP
• There was overwhelming opposition in the consultation responses to nearly all of the government's proposals for DLA reform
• The government has consistently used inaccurate figures to exaggerate the rise in DLA claimants
• The report shows that nearly all of the recent increase in working-age claimants of DLA has been associated with mental health conditions and learning difficulties. Between 2002 and 2010, the number of working-age DLA claimants - excluding those with mental health conditions and learning difficulties remained remarkably stable
•  98 per cent of those who responded opposed plans to change the qualifying period for PIP from three months (as it is with DLA) to six months
• 90 per cent opposed plans for a new assessment, which disabled people fear will be far too similar to the much-criticised work capability assessment used to test eligibility for employment and support allowance (ESA)
• Respondents to the consultation repeatedly warned that the government's plans could breach the Equality Act, the Human Rights Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

This contrasts strongly against the Governments own findings, which were that there was evidence that people were generally in favour of changes to DLA. The findings from this report suggest that this is not the case at all.

So strong has public response and feeling been on the subject that so far there have been over three million responses to the #spartacusreport hash tag on popular social media site Twitter.  

And yet so far large news media outlets have been sporadic in reporting on this news, aside from one notable exception. The Daily Mail published this response yesterday which was firmly backing the report. The Daily Mail isn’t known for supporting disability issues so this story is in of itself news worthy! Other news outlet coverage worthy of mention is The Guardian, who are running a live blog covering the House of Lords discussion of the Welfare Reform Bill that is on going over the next two weeks.

The BBC has only seen fit to publicise the report as part of its Ouch! Disability page which can be found here.

News has also just come in that the Government has been defeated in the House of Lords on three amendments, which will now be added to the Welfare Reform Bill. These are:

• To retain automatic eligibility for ESA for young disabled people who are unable to work
• To impose a two year time limit for ESA claimants, overriding the government's proposal that claimants be reassessed after 12 months
• To exempt cancer patients from the proposed ESA limit.

The House of Lords appears to be very motivated and very angry about this bill indeed!

We will summarise more about this very interesting story next week.