Rifts revealed as groups shun Low review

Sunil Peck & Ian Macrae

The setting up of a review into the funding of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for people in residential care has sparked controversy and exposed divisions between leading campaigners.

The review has been set up by the large disability charities Leonard Cheshire Disability and Mencap and is being led by the distinguished disabled crossbench peer Lord Low of Dalston (pictured). He explained to Disability Now that the charities had commissioned the review because the coalition Government had refused to undertake a similarly transparent exercise.

The Government has responded to pressure from disabled campaigners and allies by putting its plan to take away the mobility component on hold. It is understood that an internal and closed review of the proposal and its impact is being undertaken.

Meanwhile, the Low review’s findings will be published in the autumn and are intended to influence debate about the Welfare Reform Bill now that it has passed from the Commons into the Lords.

As it stands, the bill gives the Government the power to stop paying the mobility component of the Personal Independence Payment, which is set to replace DLA, to people in state-funded residential care.

The independent review’s aim is to look at how an estimated 80,000 people in residential care use the mobility component of DLA and how its withdrawal would affect them, the funding arrangements for personal mobility needs between local authorities and care home providers, and the responsibilities of care home providers in relation to the personal mobility needs of residents.

The cause of the division between campaigners centres on the review’s steering group which along with a founder of a think-tank concerned with poverty and social exclusion, a social care expert and a welfare rights officer, contains the mother of a disabled daughter and a resident of a Leonard Cheshire home.

The disabled resident is Wendy Tiffin who spoke to us about how she currently uses the mobility component.

“I get no financial help to buy my wheelchair so I have to use my DLA to finance my wheelchair and its upkeep. Also, the home has its own transport, but we have to pay for petrol and if we want to go to the local town we have to use our mobility allowance to pay for that.”

Ms Tiffin, who lives in a Leonard Cheshire home in Dorset went on to describe what losing this money would mean to her.

“I use the money to go out to the local town, to go shopping or maybe see a show or concert. Or I use it to go and see my family. They live 50 miles away so that takes a great deal of my mobility allowance. Without it I’d be a prisoner here.”

Speaking of UKDPC’s decision not to associate with the Low review, Jaspal Dhani, Chief Executive of the UK Disabled People’s Council which has campaigned vehemently against leaving care home residents without the money to fund transport costs since the plans were announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review in October 2010, said that he was “disappointed” that the steering group had no representatives of disabled people’s organisations and that he felt unable to contribute evidence to the review as a result.

He said that he had been involved with discussions with the Government about the potential impact of cuts and added: “I think some of the individuals on the steering group would find it hard to argue against the concept of residential care. I’d question whether this review could be totally independent of promoting such ideologies.”

He said that his organisation was not against allying with charities like Leonard Cheshire Disability which had provoked hostility among disabled people for promoting negative images of disability in the past.

“We have to form alliances with organisations who historically we may not have worked with. But those organisations also have to understand that this is a two-way partnership and that we can’t just simply respond to initiatives which they feel are right.”

But Neil Coyle, Disability Alliance’s Director of Policy, pointed out that the inquiry is being led by a disabled peer who is also the president of the Disability Alliance.

Referring to an internal government review which has also been set up, he said that the real issue was that the Government “is getting away at the most senior level with announcing a review that has been so poorly undertaken, secretive and dismissive of the interests of disabled people to the extent that there was not even a proper consultation in the process. That’s why we need the independent review that has been set up by Lord Low.”

He added that if disabled people failed to unite and demonstrate the failure of the Government’s policy by participating in the Low review, there was a big risk that the Government could get away with leaving 80,000 people in residential care without the means to get out and about.

Neil Coyle said: “If we focused more energy on the potential positive contribution that the Low review could and should make at a critical time of the welfare reform legislation, that will be the best thing for disabled people.”