Overwhelmingly the report, ‘Responsible Reform’, finds that disabled people do not agree that there is a need for an entirely new benefit (Personal Independence Payments or PIP) – only 7% of the respondents to the consultation supported the change to PIP fully. It also challenges the Government’s claim that DLA receipt stops sick or disabled people from working.
The report finds the Government’s response to the DLA consultation highly misleading throughout and suggests that it is likely to have broken human rights legislation. Over 450 responses, detailing objections to the proposed changes, were submitted during the consultation period – yet the government did not publish the submissions and went ahead with its plans regardless.
Alongside the publication of the report, disability activists have been running a social media campaign using the twitter hashtag #spartacusreport, in order to promote and spread the challenge to the Government’s welfare reform and accompanying bill. SWAN ( @swansocialwork ) is supporting this campaign.
SWAN would like to draw the attention of all social workers, social care workers, service users, carers, educators and students to the publication of this report. You can download the full #spartacusreport or ‘Responsible Reform’ report here.