Home truths for Leonard Cheshire

When a major disability charity is called to account to one of its service users, why, asks Peter Beresford is its first response to go on the defensive

People give to charity for many reasons, but essentially because they feel that charities do “good”. It is easy to ridicule this hope, but it rests on a fundamental if unstated covenant between the public and the third sector. The word charity is derived from the Greek for “love” and this sums up most people’s attitude towards them.

Charities therefore are entrusted with a massive public responsibility. It is all the greater because they work with some of the most impoverished, powerless and disempowered people in our world. The disabled people’s movement highlighted systemic problems in disability charities from the 1970s when they challenged the right of non-disabled people to impose their assumptions and solutions on disabled people. But there has been movement since then. Issues have become more complex and commentators have argued for new understandings.

Traditional disability charities like Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD) continue to play a key role in disability developments and services. They emphasise user involvement and while campaigns like their “Creature Discomforts” have come in for harsh criticism from disabled people’s organisations, LCD can readily argue that they are an expression of their commitment to the rights and needs of disabled people. But in March 2009, I had to report in this column that following a decision of the Information Commissioner, LCD had to release emails about a user of their residential services which revealed the highly abusive way in which senior managers had referred to him.

I first touched on this story in December 2008 when I described the service-user involved as one of my heroes for having the courage to take on organisations like LCD. Then by bringing this story fully into the public arena, the service user and I both hoped that such oppressive behaviour would end and the organisation would recognise its mistake, apologise and put its house in order. More emails have now been released. One of these newly released emails from another senior manager states in response to my first article: “Be warned – we are shafted by Peter Beresford”.

So this is the actual response of a senior representative of this large highly respected international charity when someone in line with concerns about data protection and freedom of information raises issues that result in the intervention of the Information Commissioner – the organisation has been “shafted”. Is this what people give money to LCD for? Is this transparency and accountability? Is this a safe place to live if you are a disabled person? What does this say, beyond the PR gloss, about the actual values and mentality of Leonard Cheshire Disability? Isn’t it time they came out of the bunker and explained themselves?