Welfare Cuts – the party strategies
We heard a lot last week about balancing the budget and the need to reduce the deficit, with each of the main parties having slightly different strategies to achieve this, all of which involve cuts to welfare. The government has announced its intention to reduce the welfare bill by 12bn but will not give details […]
Budget 2015
Yesterday was the last budget before the general election but was there any good news for people living with a learning disability, autism or mental health problems? Well he spoke a lot about savers who will be better off with tax concessions, and of course there is his favourite group, the “hardworking taxpayers”, he is […]
Botton Latest (March 16th)
Questions raised in the House of Lords about the forced restructuring of Botton Village as the Action for Botton campaign continues to gain political traction. Following the petition last month presented at Downing St by learning disabled residents, and now with over 30 concerned MPs of all colours writing to David Cameron, Baroness Hollins has […]
Care Act 2014 “Beyond compliance – towards excellence” (?)
The amount of comment and supporting information on The Care Act 2014, which will be implemented in April, as new or revised guidance comes into force, is mushrooming rapidly. We bring to your attention two resources on the Act, with very different origins: The SCIE (social care institute for excellence) is a charity which describes […]
Greater Manchester Gets Devolved Health Budget
Greater Manchester is to become the first English region to get full control of its health spending as part of the agreement to devolve more powers to local areas. The budgets for health and social care will be integrated into one £6bn pot, which will be controlled by the local councils that make up Greater […]
Benefit Sanctions
During a parliamentary debate on benefit sanctions the following case was highlighted: a learning disabled man was sanctioned for being 4 minutes late for an appointment. He cannot tell the time because he has learning disabilities but was sanctioned which meant he was left with no power and no food for 5 days. That this […]
Shame on LEGO
I was shocked to read in my local paper that the Legoland attraction at the Trafford Centre, Manchester has decided to ban learning disabled adults unless they are accompanied by children. Their excuse for this seems to be that learning disabled adults pose a safeguarding risk to children!
TEASC: It depends what you mean by ‘Towards’
I had never really been ‘up to speed’ on TEASC until stumbling across a reference to it in a recent online bulletin on local government. TEASC stands for Towards Excellence in Adult Social Care. Full details can be found on this page from the Logal Government Association (LGA) website , which states: “Towards Excellence in […]
The power of the petition…
We can report another ‘successful’ petition on change.org The following petition appeared on change.org’s website on 19th December 2014 Petitioning National Health Service Cumbria This petition was delivered to: National Health Service Cumbria Give Mike a chance to live in a home near his family in Wigton, Cumbria. Jennifer Henderson, Silloth, United Kingdom
IPCC considering discrimination involving the police. Disability Rights UK wants your views/experiences.
The following was received in an email from Disability Rights UK. If you feel you could help, please follow the contact guidance. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) will be producing new guidelines for police in 2015 on how to handle discrimination complaints. The IPCC has asked Disability Rights UK to feed into this work […]