2012 will see impact of cuts on the disabled

2011 has certainly been an eventful year, and particularly in the disability sector. The long anticipated Welfare Reform Bill was introduced to Parliament in February and has dominated much of the year. The bill's intention to simplify the benefits system and remove the financial disincentives from moving into work is certainly welcome – however, disabled people across the country remain deeply concerned that the cumulative effects of reforms proposed in the bill, coupled with further spending cuts (such as reduced access to social care services as a consequence of local government funding cuts), are hitting disabled people disproportionately hard.

It was this concern that led over 5,000 disabled people to march on Parliament on May 11 2011 as part of the 'Hardest Hit' campaign, which also saw a number of further regional marches and rallies across the UK in October.

As the Welfare Reform Bill enters its final stages in the House of Lords we have still seen very few concessions. Despite the very welcome announcement that following a review of the policy, care home residents will now still be eligible to receive mobility payments under the new Personal Independence Payment (replacing Disability Living Allowance), there remain a number of very serious concerns about the proposed assessment process for this new benefit. The bill also abolishes discretionary payments from the Social Fund and introduces plans to time limit eligibility for contributory Employment and Support Allowance to just one year – both of which will have a severe and detrimental impact on large numbers of disabled people.

These issues are all exacerbated by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill which has just entered committee stage in the House of Lords. If passed as it stands, the bill would take away legal aid from all those challenging complex welfare benefit decisions, making the shake-up in the benefits system even more difficult to navigate.

After the 2010 General Election Scope commissioned the independent think tank Demos to undertake a series of reports, tracking the impact of spending cuts and government reforms on disabled people's lives. The next instalment of the 'Destination Unknown' series is due to be published in the spring, at which time the government will also release its white paper on the future of social care. As we enter 2012 we can expect to begin to see the true extent to which these reforms are starting to affect the fragile finances of disabled people living in the UK.