Why I’m scared for our future

You may say what future and you may have a point… Today we saw another government take office this time a fully Tory Tory one and lets be honest not many expected them to gain a outright majority how they managed it is open for debate but they have done and we must face facts. The labour party shouldn’t go without comment in their disgraceful backing of tory austerity they have been a hammered in the polls and rightly rejected yet we are left with the proper tories at least we know what this lot stand for and that is outright destruction of the working class if they get their way. As a disabled person I have been worrying all day what will happen to us come the next 5 years. Chills of dread have flooded me and the horrors of the last 5 years tell me with Tories on their own they can get away with so much more not that the Lib Dems stopped them with any of their brutal cuts but this time it feels we are facing the abyss in terms of our welfare state, our NHS and our public sector services. A total of 12 billion pounds is to be slashed from the welfare bill and this will I tell you now directly will hit the poorest the most vunrable in our society I fear for many of us I really do. A leak last week suggested the following cuts have already been drawn up by the Tories The proposed cuts included: • Limiting support to 2 children in child benefit and child tax credit, so cutting up to £3,500 from a family with three children. • Removing the higher rate child benefit from the first child, an average cut of over £360 for every family with children. • Means testing child benefit – cutting £1,750 for a two child middle income family • Removing child benefit from 16 to 19 year olds – a cut of over £1,000 for parents of a single child. The Conservatives have been under sustained pressure to detail how they will cut £12bn from the welfare budget by 2017-2018, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank confirmed this week the Tories have so far disclosed only 10% of these cut in the form of a two-year freeze in working age benefits. With further cuts to benefits surely on its way the DWP have wasted no time in outlining plans to slash the access to work scheme a benefit which is close to my heart and helps me every time I go to work. The attacks on this particular benefit already destroy the lie that the Tories are there to help the disabled in to work and in work they just do not care and are taking the axe to this next benefit. How it will affect me long term we will have to see but be sure I will not let any attacks on me working go unheard. In a piece in the independent tonight it is said. http://fw.to/EMNy4cK The DWP has moved further to examine cutting a scheme that helps disabled people into work – just hours after the Conservatives won the election. The fund helps people and employers cover costs of disabilities that might be a barrier to work. The biggest single users of the fund are people who have difficulty seeing and people who have difficulty hearing. A policy document originally quietly announced in March suggests capping the £108m Access to Work fund. An impact assessment of the policy was released on the day the general election results. “[Spending] has risen significantly over the past five years … One of the significant strategic questions we face is how to establish the right balance between the need to support as many disabled people as possible and what it is reasonable to offer individual users,” the assessment says. The first option outlined by civil servants in the document is “to set a cap on the maximum value of support per user”. The party's manifesto boats that "last year alone, 140,000 disabled people found work" but says that "the jobless rate for this group remains too high. "As part of our objective to achieve full employment, we will aim to halve the disability employment gap: we will transform policy, practice and public attitudes, so that hundreds of thousands more disabled people who can and want to be in work find employment," it pledges. The overall spend on Access to Work in 2013/14 was £108m, covering 35,540 people. • An earlier version of this story indicated that the policy had been announced in the hours after the general election result. In fact the impact assessment for the policy was issued in the hours after the general election result, while the policy itself was issued in the run up to the general election in March This is just a glimpse of the tories aims in this next 5 years. Be under no illusion they are coming for you and they will not give a stuff about who you voted for or anything. Its time to organise ourselvesin our communities find common allies and fightback in whichever way we can using any means at our desposable. We may never see the welfare state ever a gain if we do not fightback now. The last 5 years was justa warm up for what is coming next …..

Is Access to work helping disabled people or not ?

I myself use Access to work for my part time job as a office worker and find it a key part to my working life. I use it mainly for transport costs to get a taxi to work and back due to the bus's being infrequent and unreliable at best. The last time i reapplied for Access to work i was given a really tough line of questioning from one of the advisors really asking quite personal and almost hostile questions to find out if anyway i can reduce the costs for them. I have found it to be a very good service on the whole and am so keen for it to be continued and even extended as it needs to be if the government are really serious about helping disabled people back to work as they claim. Of course the tories are not about helping disabled people in fact they have made it harder for disabled people who do want to work if anything. A brilliant blog post over at DPAC - Disabled people against cuts a group i'm very close to and support wherever i can takes a look at the mess taht is the Access to work scheme. You can read this in full over at http://dpac.uk.net/2014/10/what-the-f-is-going-on-with-access-to-work-join-the-stopchanges2atw-campaign/ For me as a blind worker Access to work is a god sent but alot in this blog post rings true with me too. In this piece which i'm quoting from the author uses's the term deaf in their piece this as the author is deaf but the message being put is much the same for any disabled people who have experience of Access to work. "More and more people are asking what is happening with Access to Work, the programme that supports Deaf and disabled people to get into and stay in employment, as changes are making it harder and harder to use. Despite the government’s well publicised extra investment in the scheme Access to Work’s clear direction of travel is to cut individual packages, with the result that the employability of Deaf and disabled people is being seriously undermined. When the Tories closed the Remploy factories in 2011-2012 they said there was no place for segregated workplaces in modern society and the money used to fund the factories would be better spent supporting Deaf and disabled people to get into and stay in mainstream employment through the Access to Work programme. Over the past year, with the factory closures out of the way, changes introduced to the AtW programme have decreased eligibility, brought considerable distress and uncertainty to customers who had previously and successfully used the programme for many years, pushed Deaf and disabled people out of jobs and left others fearing for their futures. It is difficult to summarise all the changes: AtW is awarded on a discretionary ‘case by case’ basis and the programme has always denied the existence of any blanket rules for particular impairment groups. What we have seen emerging are some clear patterns around the cutting of packages, lack of information and hostility to AtW customers alongside growing inefficiency and cuts to AtW service delivery. The first clear pattern emerged with respect to Deaf customers who suddenly found themselves labelled as ‘fraudsters’. Individuals contacting AtW advisers, in some cases advisers they had had for many years were greeted with a completely different and hostile attitude. They were told ‘there are high levels of Access to Work fraud in the Deaf community’. Changes brought in including the notorious ’30 hour rule’, requiring Deaf customers using more than 30 hours of BSL interpreters per week to employ a salaried interpreter, have literally left Deaf people unable to continue in their jobs. The government has sought to justify what it is doing by pointing the finger at interpreters, blaming them for ‘costing too much’, meanwhile undermining what is a highly skilled and important profession. A particularly nasty move has been the introduction of retrospective decision making experienced by both Deaf and disabled people who have had their packages cut with the cuts being backdated after support costs have already been incurred. This situation has been compounded by the fact that has review notices are no longer sent out warning AtW customers when their packages are due for renewal which easily leads to people not realising their packages have ended. Deaf and disabled people have been left owing thousands of pounds and has left interpreters and support workers owed thousands of pounds, causing considerable hardship and distress. Successful appeals against changes to packages have been made but many people do not realise they have a right to appeal or how they would go about making a complaint. Others are too worried about losing the rest of their package to make a fuss. This is where the website DeafAtW has been invaluable, providing information and support on how to challenge decisions. There is a growing level of misinformation, confusion and chaos coming from AtW itself as a result of a restructuring that has seen a dramatic reduction in the numbers of contact centres and outsourcing. AtW invoices remain unpaid from months and months ago because the addresses of the payment centres changed but customers weren’t told. Meanwhile application backlogs have amassed. Given that Deaf and disabled people often cannot start a job until their AtW package is in place, yet can only make an application after an employment start date has been confirmed, this has presumably Deaf and disabled people unable to take up job offers. Money pledged by this government for the Access to Work budget has yet to appear. This was highlighted at the Work and Pension Select Committee oral evidence session when Remploy confirmed that the £80million per year “saved” from the closure of the factories hadn’t materialised in AtW support. There was also an additional £17million that hasn’t appeared. These two amounts would mean the AtW budget should have doubled in the past four years, yet cuts are being made. For a government that claims its welfare reform measures are all about supporting more people into employment, the changes to Access to Work appear counter-productive. Moreover, in a time of austerity, changes to the programme represent a cutting back of a scheme that actually makes money for the state: the Sayce report found that for every pound invested in Access to Work, £1.48 is recouped by the Treasury. But for anyone familiar with Tory welfare policies none of this comes as a surprise. Ill-thought through ideologically driven policies are seeking to reduce ‘dependency’ and dismantle the welfare state, removing social security from those that need it and creating situations that will end up costing more. While the Tories describe AtW as a ‘benefit’ and a dependency and fail to understand it as an investment, campaigners have beaten back some of the attacks. AtW eventually conceded that it was not realistic to expect employers to contribute the on costs for salaried interpreters under the 30 hour rule. In May the Minster for Disabled People announced a review into the 30 hour rule and the DWP Select Committee Inquiry agreed not only to take evidence on how changes were impacting on Deaf people but also extended the deadline for submissions whereas originally the inquiry had been intended to focus on employment support for people with mental health support needs and learning difficulties. Individual decisions have also been revised in the face of continued campaigning and challenges. More is needed though. We have yet to hear the outcome of the Minister’s review. Meanwhile we are hearing of cuts to AtW packages impacting ever wider, putting jobs at risk and pushing Deaf and disabled people out of employment. We need to step up our campaign to make sure information is available and accessible and people know what to do if they are impacted by the changes, to fight for the employment rights of Deaf and disabled people and to protect the terms and conditions of BSL interpreters and ensure we are not divided. StopChanges2ATW campaign open meeting – Thursday 23rd October 2014, 6 – 7.30pm, 336 Brixton Road, London, SW9 7AA. For more information read StopChanges2ATW and Inclusion London’s submissions to the DWP select committee inquiry: http://www.inclusionlondon.co.uk/ATW-ILs-%20and%20stop-changes2atw-respond-to-call-for-evidence

My difficulties with access to work

I recently found out I had to reapply for Access to work a scheme designed to aid disabled people in work and to enable them to complete tasks to achieve work tasks as any other able bodied person would do. All was going reasonably fine until today when I received a rather stern phone call from one of their advisors. Clearly they re checking up on every single case now and going through your case with a fine toothed comb to see you’re not cheating the system or getting any money you shouldn’t. I must stress now my situation has not changed at all in the 3 years I have been working and my support has remained the same. On the governments own website they state Access to Work - practical help at work Access to Work can help you if your health or disability affects the way you do your job. It gives you and your employer advice and support with extra costs which may arise because of your needs. Check if you qualify for Access to Work. Today I was interviewed over the phone about my claimant I was asked all sorts of probing questions in attempts for the government to save money it didn’t have to pay out to support me in work. I was asked could I get a bus instead of a taxi each week now the taxi I get is only 4 journey’s a week as I only work two days at present and gets me door to door taking a bus which are very infrequent and highly unreliable I’d have to get to work 2 hours early and not get home till 2 hours after I finished work. All for a 3 mile trip. More questions were fired at me could I change my working hours to fit? umm no I’m employed for a certain amount of hours I cant change it I told them they wanted to know every last detail it felt and I came off the phone feeling very shaky and highly intimidated by the whole interview. It felt like I was being accused of claiming for things I shouldn’t or I shouldn’t be claiming for support I should support myself. Now I don’t earn much at work and I only get DLA and working tax credits to make my income up to something near liveable on I certainly can’t contribute anymore than I already am. I pay 50p in every mile for my journey to work and am allowed to claim back the rest and I don’t think this is too unreasonable. I am working at the end of the day part time maybe and it’s not the greatest job in the world but I’m working. If this government want disabled people to work they need to get their finger out and support the properly making the necessary adjustments however much they cost as how else can they expect us to work ? All this rhetoric about scroungers and benefit cheats about the disabled makes us out to be on the fiddle all the time when we’re not the vast majority of people disabled or not just wish to earn a living and live comfortably if that means we need extra support the government or the employer should make the funding available to meet our needs in my view. I thought about it after but didn’t say so on the phone to this advisor that we are not a poor country there is 750 billion pounds of money stashed in the banks of big business not being invested don’t tell me we are a poor country as we are not these companies just refuse to invest this as they see no profit to be made in investing at this time. As socialists we would say there needs to be an immediate 50% levee on that figure to invest in public works, s new schools, the NHS and a programme of council housing building on a mass scale could start to get people back to work and start to meet people’s needs. This incident today reminded me of the ATOS exposure on panorama where they would try any tactic to get your off benefits back into work, I’ve not been through that ordeal and never wish too but this felt similar but ridiculously I’m in work and trying to gain support. The Tories, labour and their dems all talk of getting disabled people back to work and yes to a extent I agree with them where there is a job and a job is needing doing pay people a decent wage for it and employ people on proper terms but and this is the crucial point if you are disabled like myself we do need that little bit more support than others. No sham in that but the money is there and can be used to support us they often just choose not to. Both the government and big business would rather take money back off you or not spend it in the first place. Its hugely hypocritical that they claim to want to get disabled people into work yet when they make it as difficult as possible for them to gain thnecessary support they need to complete work related tasks. I just think the system is wrong and instead of intimidation and threats to cut your support they should be looking to go the extra mile to support disabled people who wish to work. Of course there are those who can’t work and accept that and they shouldn’t be bullied or discriminated because of that fact instead should be allowed to live their lives comfortably and contribute in other ways to society. At the end of the day we work to live not live to work. Perhaps the government who are hell bent on austerity ought to take note of this. A society which put peoples needs before anything else is what we strive for as socialists if people wished to work they should be a ble to and no barriers in front of them. A socialist society would support everybody’s needs not just a few rich individuals who call the shots at present.

Cuts hit the disabled hard

I thought i'd share a excellent article in our paper - the socialist this week where i feature towards the end.

Disabled people and family carers are now experiencing an unprecedented attack. Cuts made and planned by the Tory/Liberal coalition will hit the public and community services they use and the benefits they rely on.
All but the most severely disabled will be expected to look or prepare for work, and face the loss of benefits if they refuse even a few hours of employment. As these articles show, the cuts will have a devastating impact unless a mass campaign is built to stop them.
Benefits slashed
A recent Care and Support Alliance survey of 1,000 disabled people and family carers, found that 22% have support needs but are not receiving services; 54% said changes to services had a negative impact on their health; 52% said their independence had been negatively affected; and 43% were less able to afford essentials such as food or heating. This was before the latest round of cuts.

In the name of a 'deficit' caused by the greed of the bankers and their profit-driven system, £81 billion in public spending cuts are planned to be carried out over the next four years.

The 28% cut in government funding to local authorities has already led to £1 billion cuts in social care spending this year and the tightening of eligibility criteria. This is at a time when there is a growing population of older disabled people.

£18 billion cuts in welfare spending will also lead to significant changes in benefits. Of the 70,000 who lost all benefits in October 2010, 20,000 were disabled people.

For example, a new Personal Independence Payment (PIP) will replace the mobility and care components of the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) from 2013. This is a move to reduce entitlement by at least 20%. Automatic entitlements will end, and the successful use of aids, such as a wheelchair, could lead to the loss of benefits.

PIPs will require incapacity benefit claimants to be reviewed. They will face the possibility of sanctions for making mistakes when claiming. Already 20,000 disabled people lose their benefits every month.

Increasing rents for some social housing to 80% of market rates, and cutting the amount given in housing benefit will have an impact on thousands of disabled people, placing many vulnerable people at risk of homelessness. Also, the National Housing Federation has warned that over 400,000 including vulnerable people, such as pensioners and victims of domestic violence, are at risk of losing essential housing support funded by the Supporting People programme.

The misnamed Welfare Reform Bill being rushed through Parliament is the vehicle for most of these cuts. It will also introduce, from October 2013, a Universal Credit that will eventually replace tax credits, housing benefit, social fund loans, income support and income based Employment Support and Jobseeker's Allowances.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

United action can stop cuts
A disabled Unison member

Disabled people protest against cuts, photo S Civi (Click to enlarge)
Given the scale of these cuts, the initial response of disabled people's organisations has been mixed. Following the autumn spending review, Inclusion London published a briefing that condemned outright the Tory/Liberal cuts. Both they and the Norfolk Coalition of Disabled People have since produced a detailed analysis of what the cuts will mean for disabled people and family carers in their areas.

But the United Kingdom Disabled People's Council (UKDPC) post-spending review statement said it had discussions with the Tory minister for disabled people, Maria Miller, and stressed the need for full impact assessments that would 'identify the effect the cuts will have' on disabled people.

The winter 2010-11 edition of UKDPC's Activate newsletter contained no outline or analysis of the cuts, but did announce the setting up of a Disability Rights Watch UK to gather evidence "to show the UK government where they need to improve the law, policies and practices to ensure that disabled people can enjoy their full human rights".

Gathering personal stories of how the cuts and discrimination are impacting on people can have an effect in countering government propaganda if they are widely circulated. But reasoning with a coalition that sees its historical legacy as completing the dismantling of the welfare state, started by Margaret Thatcher, is like trying to scratch a diamond.

There has also been a failure to publicly condemn the planned closure of the Independent Living Fund (ILF) that will put many of its 21,000 users at risk of having to choose between living independently with the most basic of support or being forced into residential care.

The government's announcement in December that the ILF is 'financially unsustainable' was supported by the Fund's trustees, and made only after consulting with 'disability organisations' that still have to be named.

In response to the ILF planned closure and the broader cuts, the National Centre for Independent Living has reiterated its long-term demand for a 'right to independent living'. But granting this right, without the billions in resources needed to achieve it, would ring hollow.

In fact, the current statutory duty on local authorities to assess and provide social services, contained in section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, is under threat. This is a primary target of Communities Secretary Eric Pickles' war on local authority legal duties in preparation for the mass privatisation or closure of services.

The decision by the UKDPC and the Disability Benefits Consortium (DBC) in January to organise 'The Hardest Hit' (THH) march, rally and lobby of Parliament on Wednesday 11 May reflects the groundswell of anger and alarm building among disabled people and family carers since the autumn spending review.

However, it must be used as a starting point to build a national campaign against the cuts. Disabled people's and carers' organisations and the disability charities involved in the DBC employ several thousand workers and have tens of thousands of members across the country.

Mobilised into a national campaign with active groups in every town and city, it could quickly give disabled people, family carers and not-for-profit sector workers, many of whom are facing redundancies and wage cuts, the confidence to fight back together and build a mass movement that would find an echo among millions.

On their own disabled people and carers' organisations cannot beat this government. Although it is possible that partial retreats such as the decision to continue to give mobility benefits to those in residential care could be achieved.

It is vital that links are developed with the public sector trade unions and the developing anti-cuts movement. Disabled people and family carers must play a role in them and support the call for a one-day public sector strike, as the next step in the campaign following the 26 March trade union demo.

Together we can defeat this government, reverse the cuts made so far, and demand decent benefits, pensions, jobs, homes and services for all.

We call for:
No cuts in benefits, jobs and public services
Oppose the Welfare Reform Bill
Decent benefits, education, training or work for all, without compulsion
No privatisation of services. Take back in-house all privatised services
Sack Atos Origin and scrap the Work Capability Assessment
A living wage and provision of respite for all family carers
Provide free health and social care services to all who need them
Stop using children and family members as a substitute for professional services
A national campaign to save the Independent Living Fund
Massive investment in social housing, services and infrastructure to create jobs and meet need
For a 24-hour public sector general strike as the next step in the campaign to defeat all the cuts
For a socialist society that puts the needs of the millions before the profits of the millionaires

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Little help for carers
Pamela Smith
"Families are crumbling across the country as carers cannot cope". Bristol mum Riven Vincent posted this online in January. David Cameron had visited her before the 2010 general election and pledged that, if elected, he'd protect disabled children.

Yet across the country, centres for disabled people and their carers are closing. The services and charities that form the scaffolding for the shaky edifice of Cameron's Big Society have had funds cut. Key welfare benefits are being axed and it's harder than ever for carers to get respite.

Hypocritically the Tories praise carers but expect families to bear the brunt of the cuts. They preach good traditional values but it is costs, not values that matter to them.

Thousands of children care for relatives to the detriment of their own welfare. Women in particular are often thrust into caring roles in the home - and into poverty.

Cameron famously knows what it's like to have a disabled child and the tragedy of losing a child is immeasurable. But millionaire Cameron and his rich wife had all kinds of resources at their disposal.

The millionaires, sitting in Cabinet or inhabiting the boardrooms of big companies, probably never empty bedpans for their parents, go without holidays or, like Riven, care 24/7 for tube-fed, doubly-incontinent children without their nannies, drivers, cleaners, gardeners and personal assistants.

Most carers have to leap hurdles before they get any help, waiting months for an answer to requests and when help comes it's often too little too late. Dave and Sam didn't crack under the pressure whereas Riven did. After six hard years and being told not to expect more than six hours weekly respite, she sadly asked for her child to be taken into care.

An extra £800 million has been allocated to respite care over the next four years, but it's not ring-fenced. Local councils can decide how to spend it and they are making cuts. Under Labour only 23% of the £400 million given for respite care in 2008 actually went into carers' breaks.

We deserve better
Caring involves financial, physical and psychological costs to the carer. It's a cheap option for the Con-Dem government.

But we and the people we love and care for deserve better: professional, dedicated support; training; weekly respite and proper holidays; a decent living income.

But let's face it - many of us wouldn't be doing it at all if there was a good, free and well-funded care system worthy of the name.

My mum told me: "Wheel me to the local DWP office or the NHS. Tell them you're on strike. Imagine if all the carers did that"!

She's right: we deserve a break. But expect nothing from the Con-Dems, although the last lot were no better. Somehow we'll have to fight for it!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Profiteer vultures circle over services
Jackie Russell
Since 2008 Labour and Con-Dem governments have paid around £100 million a year to Atos Healthcare, a division of Atos Origin, to assess new sickness and disability related benefit claimants for the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). By using the unfair Work Capability Assessment (WCA), many were found 'fit to work'.

From April 2011 the WCA will be used by the Tory/Liberal government to assess one and a half million current disabled and ill Incapacity Benefit claimants. Of these, only about a quarter of a million will be transferred on to ESA.

Even then, many receiving ESA will only be able to claim it for a year. Those transferred to Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) will receive £26 a week less, causing further and unnecessary hardship.

Some disabled people, particularly people with learning difficulties or mental health problems or cognitive impairments such as dyslexia, will be at risk of sanctions.

Since the introduction of the WCA, there has been a massive rise in appeals at the tribunal service. At least 40% of those appealing have been found 'not fit to work.' This process is a waste of taxpayers' money that is better used to create jobs, as well as hugely stressful.

Incredibly, many reports have stated that claimants, diagnosed with cancer, have been declared as fit to work; many blind and deaf people will also no longer automatically receive sickness benefit and are unlikely to qualify for extra help in finding work.

While most disabled people want to work, the government has also failed to appreciate that there are few supported jobs available to them and has not fully recognised the barriers that they experience in obtaining jobs - the institutional discrimination and prejudicial attitudes.

Atos Origin's renewed contract will involve them reassessing all existing Disability Living Allowance claimants to check if they are eligible for the new Personal Independent Payment.

This transition aims to save the government a further £1 billion plus that will result in many disabled people being found no longer eligible or placed on a lower rate than before.

Along with the privatisation of the welfare state, it seems that we are reverting to what working class and poor disabled people had to go through in the 19th century, where they had to provide for themselves and in times of crisis, were forced to go cap in hand to workhouses and philanthropists.

Most of the capitalist newspapers are aiding the government's ability to divide and rule by blaming the vulnerable in society, for example, scapegoating disabled people as 'scroungers', "greedy skivers" and "benefit cheats" for claiming benefits.

For the last six decades, the country has been governed by all three political parties and disabled people are no further forward in securing their right to live as equal citizens. They are still being denied welfare services. This indicates the need for society to become a socialist one, that puts people first, not profit.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The way I see things
Mark Wright
For me, someone who is registered blind, the cuts are a very real and worrying thing. Like many other blind and visually impaired people, I rely on Disability Living Allowance (DLA), not totally, but to top up the income we often can't receive.

Due to finding work difficult to come by I have only been able to get a part-time job. Many may ask why do I require DLA if I can work. That is missing the point.

Contrary to what Iain Duncan Smith, minister for work and pensions, has to say, the DLA is a non work-based benefit that has two components.

Access to work
The first is the mobility part which is used to help disabled people get about and remain as independent as they can be, given their disability.

The other part is the care component which goes towards helping you pay the costs of living. If you require a carer it would go towards that.

Also, as someone who is registered blind, I have had mixed experiences with the 'access to work' scheme set up by the previous Labour government.

Despite its slowness and inefficiency it is still a very good service which helps many disabled people into work. My workplace was adapted for me to carry out tasks like any other employee.

None of the cost of this is funded by the employer, be they in the non-governmental public or private sector.

Cuts affect productivity
Instead a government grant can cover things like taxi transport to and from work if a bus service is not available or equipment like screen readers for use with computers, which I take full advantage of.

Cuts in these areas will not only affect me but will affect my productivity. I really think the government should be looking to encourage disabled people into work rather than making them feel like criminals for needing support and assistance to be on a level playing field with the rest of society.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Hardest Hit march & rally
Wednesday 11 May, 11.30am
by Horseguards Avenue,
Victoria Embankment, London

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How small business's are struggling under the tories

As with a lot of small business's nothing has really improved under the tories.

Work has dried up for a lot of industries and it is looking bleak in the coming months.

This is no different for where i work a small manufacturing business which has no more than 50 members of staff and two workshops and a small office of about 8 people. This is a typical small business which relies on the contracts from public sector frameworks such as the water boards and sewage treatment works. All of these sorts of jobs have dried up with few if any new housing being built in the country despite us desperatly needing more and more.

With the addition of the VAT rise in January up to 20% now all of our suppliers have put up their prices so everything becomes a lot more competitive and harder to have that cutting edge on others in the industry.

Not only that but national insurance contributions are going up in April i hear which will affect workers having to contribute more to an already squeezed wage take home when you deduct tax and everything but also your company will have to contribute some too. Altogether this is not good news for a busienss like the one i work for. AWith jobs and work hard to come by these extra tax's and costs the tory lead coalition are throwing at us are simply not helping the situation.
The tories claim to be on the side of small business. I fail to see that personally they only people they are on the side of how i can see it is their rich banker friends from down the city.

I see no incentivs for small business's to employ more people like they want the private sector to do at all.

I'm no advocator of private sector work at all but as i happen to work in it i couldnt help notice these sorts of things. That the tories plans to help people into work by laying off people in teh public sector and hoping blindly that the private sector will pick up the fallout. This is just simply blind optimism from the tories i feel as they have no actual plan for this at all, no real awareness that the private sector is struggling too as a lot of it does rely on public sector contracts and work coming from there too.

As a result things are very tight and hard right now. I cant see things improving that much either with inflation going up and up and up.

Another period of negative growth and we are back in recession, i do see us going back into recession as things are just not picking up quickly enough or if at all. The tories have no plans for growth at all its just all cuts cuts cuts.

I do wonder if they have another plan

Coalition breaking pledge for access to work for disabled people

http://www.bhfederation.org.uk/federation-news/item/1010-government-backs-out-of-access-to-work-pledge.html

This article illustrates another broken promise from the coalition government. yes they are coming thick and fast now but this latest one shows that they will only provide a letter you can print off to your potential future employers to garuntee the money will be there to make reasonable adjustments and support aids to help you work.

Just a letter ? will this really assure possible employers that disabled people should be worth takign a risk with employing by just reading a letter which from waht i can gather will only say that this person is eligable to claim for support for access to work.
For me access to work is a life saver and helps me out a lot, with taxi costs for getting to and from work as bus's are far too infrequent. They have also helped me gain training for my screen reader technology which enables me to work as like any other worker.

They have also provided other support in forms of aids to help me adapt to a working environment.

I just think during times of cutst o jobs and difficulty gaining work. Helping and encouraging disabled people into work will go a long way to securing a lot of disabled peoples futures.

So i believe access to work is a great idea and should be protected and expanded if possible. I think it should even be extended to before you gain work to help disabled people apply for jobs. Pledging money to help people with money to get to job interviews and other such events that helps you gain work are all things this government and Labour as an opposition should be encouraged.