The following is a very abridged version of an article in the New Statesman in April 2015. The full article gives case studies of people with severe disabilities such as cerebral palsy whose lives have been severely affected by the cuts. www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/04/disability-audit-eight-coalition-policies-have-hit-disabled-people
"The coalition’s cuts have fallen 18 times harder on severely disabled people in poverty than on the average citizen. Disabled people are losing £28bn of support – with individuals hit by up to six different cuts.
Here are eight coalition policies that have hit disabled people:
1. Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
By this time last March Atos had quit its £500m contract administrating the coalition’s now infamous “fit to work” test. But Atos – and its replacement, Maximus – are the private sector monkey to the Department for Work and Pension’s (DWP) organ grinder. Last year, it emerged that people with degenerative conditions were being judged by the WCA as likely to “recover” enough to look for work.
2. Personal Independence Payments (PIP)
At the same time as the crisis with ESA, the government decided to scrap Disability Living Allowance (DLA), replacing it with the “tougher” Personal Independence Payments (PIP). A year into the reform, parliament’s public spending watchdog was calling the government’s handling of PIP “nothing short of a fiasco” – with widespread delays and reports of claimants being hospitalised due to the stress of the process.
3. Bedroom tax
Almost two thirds of the tenants hit by the policy are from households that contain someone who has a disability – that’s over 400,000. Savings have been nominal – and have only come off the back of pushing some of the most disadvantaged people in society into debt, rent arrears, and worsening health.
4. Council tax
The bedroom tax may have grabbed the headlines but it came at the same time as another, equally appalling hit on the ability of the so-called “vulnerable” to pay the rent. From April 2013, the government slashed funding for council tax benefit by £500m, leaving cash-strapped local authorities to decide how the remainder should be distributed. The result? 2.3m families previously exempt now have to pay at least a portion of their council tax – that’s the poorest, the disabled, and carers.
5. Independent Living Fund (ILF)
For its users, the Independent Living fund helped 18,000 of some of the most severely disabled people to live in their own homes – making the difference between living independently as an adult rather than going into residential care.
The supposed transfer of responsibility for care provision to local authorities isn't ring-fenced, meaning hard-pressed local councils have no obligation to spend it on current recipients.
6. Social care
Social care has had over £3.5bn taken from its funding by the coalition over the past four years, according to Adass, directors of adult social services. The result has been councils forced to reduce the number of disabled people dubbed as eligible for it – essentially abandoning adults with severe disabilities to live without even basic help.
By the end of the decade, the Local Government Association and Adass estimate there will be a £4.3bn funding “black hole” in adult social care. Scope’s report, “The Other Care Crisis”, puts it clearly: “Austerity has pushed the system to crisis point...turning back the clock on disabled people’s independence.”
7. Access to Work
For a government obsessed with “hardworking families” and “making work pay”, changes like PIP or social care have not only been immoral but counterproductive. Cutting the support disabled people need to get dressed and leave the house tends to make it difficult for them to be able to turn up to work.
8. Benefit sanctions
There are no legitimate grounds to remove the money people need in order to eat, whether that person begins as the picture of health or is sitting in a wheelchair. But it gives some insight into the mentality of the system that as of last year, the number of benefit sanctions against disabled and chronically ill people had risen by 580 per cent."