Demos: Shocking impact of local cuts on disabled people revealed

Demos: Shocking impact of local cuts on disabled people revealed

When the HHS cuts were highlighted at long last, my thought was - "okay, now the law suits begin and they will prove more costly than the ALEC-proscribed 'cures'"

Well, the UK is a bit ahead of us in all this -- here's what to expect -- -LAW SUITS.  LAW SUITS. LAW SUITS in all kinds of areas no one ever thought would come to pass.

Coping with the Cuts, 2011

Research published by think tank Demos exposes the impact that local budget cuts are having on disabled people and indicates that some councils are making cuts to disabled people’s services without knowledge of the number or needs of people in their area.

*snip*

interviewing disabled families and their support

providers in three local authorities we have found that disabled

people often have to cope with the impact of multiple cuts

simultaneously—the people we spoke to were experiencing

increases in service charges, restrictions or reductions in

direct payments, and service closures all at the same time. The

cumulative effect on disabled families is that even cuts and

changes that seem evenly spread across services can converge

on individual families and have a disproportionately negative

effect. This is rarely taken into account in (local or national)

spending strategies and again underlines the importance of

robust impact assessments based on ‘real’ data from those

using services.

It is worth remembering that the successful legal

challenge to changes to care eligibility and cuts in

Birmingham were based on a lack of consultation with local

service users and an insufficient impact assessment.

136

The

presiding judge said, ‘even in… straitened times the need

for clear, well-informed decision making when assessing the

impacts on less advantaged members of society is as great, if

not greater’.

137

A more recent legal challenge by the National

Deaf Children’s Society against Stoke on Trent City Council

is also based on the lack of a proper impact assessment of the

cuts to deaf children’s services,

138

while at the time of writing,

the Isle of Wight was awaiting a High Court decision as to

whether a full judicial review should be undertaken regarding

its decision to increase care eligibility.

139

A Community Care survey suggests, in fact, that legal

challenges to local authority care policies have increased by

45 per cent this year.

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Nonetheless, we did not carry out this analysis of local data

and mapping to name and shame local authorities or to fight the

budgetary cuts being made; instead we wanted to demonstrate

that a budgetary reduction need not inevitably lead to frontline cuts,

higher charges or poorer quality services. There are

ways—some innovative, some everyday and common-sense—to

mitigate the impact of the cuts on the front line and protect

disabled people from a reduction or restriction of services.