Hard times ahead as recession looms

By Sunil Peck

Campaigners are warning that the “credit crunch” is already affecting a significant number of disabled people and their families.

The disabled childrens’ charity, Newlife, reports a 400 per cent increase in the number of requests for assistance in August from parents wishing to purchase specialist equipment. It says that some parents are using credit cards to pay for wheelchairs after failing to obtain statutory funding.

Sheila Brown, chief executive of Newlife, said: “There are a quarter of a million children across the country desperate for essential equipment. Statutory services often spend a pitiful amount on equipment for each disabled child and some charities are now unable to offer any support or have waiting lists of up to two years.”

Trudi Beswick, the chief executive of Caudwell Children, a charity for terminally-ill and disabled children, such as Tilly Griffiths, reported similar problems. She said: “We’ve seen a massive rise in families requiring help. June, July and August are usually our slowest months but, because people obviously couldn’t [afford to] go away they were our busiest this year. Already the needs of families that come to us have doubled since last year.

“Families that didn’t originally fit our criteria are coming back after someone in the family has been made redundant or lost their job, needing our help.”

Disabled people’s organisations are also bracing themselves for the recession. Barbara Litchfield, chief executive of Enfield Disability Action, said she expected that the increase in energy prices would lead to more people seeking financial and debt advice. Claire Glasman, from WinVisible, said: “People are saying it’s really hard to afford home care and a lot of people in our network have dropped out of using home care. We’re heavily involved in supporting and helping people who have been cut off or forced to [stop using home care]. The need for help and support is greater than ever. We’re very worried about people’s welfare when they aren’t getting the basic services they need.”

While the big disability charities RNIB and Leonard Cheshire Disability said that they did not expect to feel the effects of falling incomes for some time, Scope has already had to make several high level managers redundant as part of a strategy to save two-and-a-half million pounds.

The Trades Union Congress has already predicted that unemployment will hit two million next year. Peter Purton, the TUC’s disability policy officer, fears that disabled people will be hit as the credit crisis deepens. He said: “In many organisations, if there’s any perception that anyone has high support needs or might be considered less productive, especially in the commercial sectors, then they’re obviously going to be at risk of being first in the firing line. Even though it might be illegal to act in that way, there’s not going to be very much people can do to challenge it in reality unless they have a union to fight the case.”

Paul Wright, a debt and disability case worker employed by Sheffield Citizens Advice Bureau, said: "There are a lot of disabled people who are having difficulty paying fuel bills, and more and more people tend to be going for bankruptcy.” He added: “We are anticipating that there is going to be an increase in people with a disability who are in debt because of the economic downturn. If you're on a lower income or disability benefit, then you're going to have more problems as prices in the shops and fuel prices go up."

Paul Treloar, of Disability Alliance, questioned the thinking behind the government’s decision to press ahead with plans to shift more disabled people off incapacity benefit and into work.

“If there are fewer jobs then there’s going to be more competition for places. It is true to some degree that we need to up-skill disabled people, but that does undermine the case for more conditionality [setting conditions for receiving benefits] in making people do job searches because it’s going to be difficult enough anyway.”

Remploy has closed 29 factories since last November. But its spokeswoman said that it was too early to know how the credit crisis would affect its remaining factories.

Sue Bott, director of the National Centre for Independent Living, fears that disabled people will suffer as local authorities seek to save money to compensate for funds tied up in Icelandic bank accounts.

“My fear is that the shortfall will be made up from cutbacks in services and increases in charges, even though charges are already sky-high. I fear that they are going to pick on that section of the community that finds it most difficult to get across their point of view and that’s people using social care services.”

Disability arts, too, could suffer. Tony Heaton, the chief executive of Shape, said: “There is no doubt that the impending recession will have an impact on our sector as much of our fundraising is generated from trusts that rely on returns from investment and the banking and finance sector. There is also the potential for our services to suffer, particularly training. This is an easier budget to cut than many when times
get hard.”

• Additional reporting by Cathy Reay