We are all Spartacus

It’s an unusual event for a report and the motivation for producing it to come directly from within the community for whom it purports to speak. But, as Ian Macrae reports, such was the case in early January

The Prime Minister’s claim that “We’re all in this together” was given a new twist early in the new year when it was coupled with the Roman myth of Spartacus, the slave whose identity was concealed when all rebellious slaves claimed that they were Spartacus.

The occasion was the publication of a report, under the name of Spartacus which was actually the work of a group of disabled people working together to properly research, collate and publish the results of the Government’s consultation into its proposed reform of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and its replacement by PIP (Personal Independence Payment).

Requests for disclosure of the full responses to the consultation were made under the Freedom Of Information (FOI) Act.

In issuing her own response to the consultation, Minister for Disabled People, Maria Miller simply reaffirmed the Government’s intention to plough on with the reform. She gave no indication as to the level of opposition expressed by the thousands of people who gave their views.

Apart from its startlingly revealing results, what set the Spartacus report aside was that it came from within the disabled community. It was entirely researched, written and funded by disabled people and was subsequently supported by a range of individuals and organisations acting as allies.

It was also remarkable in that, like recent international movements, its support was gathered, coordinated and communicated using social networks such as Twitter.

One of the key activists involved with producing and propagating the report was Kaliya Franklin. Speaking a day after its launch, she told Disability Now: “It was amazing. The Spartacus report trended pretty much all day on and off. At some points it was trending worldwide with the international disabled community getting involved on a worldwide level.”

Among the celebrities who supported the launch were Stephen Fry and Alastair Campbell both of whom are active as bloggers and on Twitter. Ms Franklin told us: “We had all kinds of celebrity support and endorsement.

“With Alastair Campbell it’s quite simple. He’s had his own mental health issues and is very involved with mental health work and he wanted to do whatever he could as part of our community and using his influence.”

Among the things which the research unearthed which were published in the report was the opposition of the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson to the Government’s welfare reform agenda. In its response to the consultation, the Mayor’s office said: “The Mayor would call for the Government to retain the three-month qualifying period as the increase to six months will mean that people with fluctuating conditions have increased difficulty meeting the qualifying period. People with fluctuating conditions face the same barriers that all disabled face in relation to higher costs of living and DLA is essential to maintain a decent quality of life.”

Mayor Johnson was not alone in his opposition to this aspect of benefit reform. The report revealed that 98 per cent of those who responded to the consultation objected to the extension of the qualifying period for PIP, the benefit which it’s proposed will replace DLA.

There were similarly high levels of objection, again with support from the London Mayor, to the proposal that DLA or its PIP replacement would no longer bring with it automatic entitlement to other benefits.

90 per cent of respondents also opposed the introduction of a new type of assessment for entitlement to DLA/PIP. It’s generally feared that any new process would prove to be as alienating and ineffective as the Work Capability Assessment currently being used to gauge people’s fitness for work.

Apart from bringing these very high levels of public opposition to public notice – there was for instance, “overwhelming opposition” to the idea of replacing DLA with PIP – the hopes of Kaliya Franklin and other disabled people who produced the report are that they will force a pause of six months in the reform process for consideration and further more transparent consultation.