Around 70 people gathered at a well attended protest outside the Royal Court of Justice today to demand a halt to the close of the Independent Living Fund (ILF).
The ILF is used to support the most severely disabled people live independent lives. In what the Government claim is reform and everyone else knows means cuts, funding will be devolved to local councils. This funding will not be ring-fenced meaning that the money may well be spent plugging the gap in Town Hall budgets due to the already savage cuts.
Campaigners warn that disabled people could be forced back into institutions due to the closure of the fund as councils seek to cut costs..
Today’s protest, which saw speakers from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Inclusion London and the PCS Union, came as six people challenged the closure of the fund in the high court. The case, which is ongoing, will argue that the closure of the fund will breach the United Nations Convention for the Rights of People with Disabilities which provides the right to independent living and the right to an adequate standard of living and protection.
Lawyers will argue that the consultation into the closure of the fund was illegal due to a failure to provide adequate information about the changes. The court will also hear that there has not been an adequate assessment of the impact of the closure of the ILF on disabled people’s ability to live and work independently.
For more information about the closure of the ILF and the personal testimonies of those affected visit: http://www.dpac.uk.net/blog/
the void 
Pingback: Protesters Gather at the Courts to Save the Independent Living Fund | Welfare, Disability, Politics and People's Right's | Scoop.it
You have to hand it to IDS for persevering in suffering. Not his own of course:
http://welfareuk.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/invincible-ignorance/
Pingback: Protesters Gather at the Courts to Save the Independent Living Fund | Disability Issues | Scoop.it
I’ve neve encountered a UK government that has done more to wreck disabled people’s lives.
here here!
Love the blog!
The coalition makes me sick but labour weren’t much better but where is the alternative? UKIP? What a joke!
fuck off with these party political broadcasts for the swivel-eyed far right-wing loons knowns a UKIP
what angers me is that opposition to these proposals are always based on legal technicalities never moral ones, once they rejig or reword something then everything seems ok in the eyes of the legal proffession when it clearly is not.
Completely agree that the legal argument whilst useful and perhaps pivotal in stopping the closure of the ILF is not and should not be the foundation behind why this closure is wrong. We have fought for independence as Disabled People in a long and ongoing battle, it sickens me to think that we are only thought of as a funding issue
We should have the same inalienable rights as non-disabled people, yet we are used as political cannon fodder
May be Guy Fawkes had the right idea, and if we had a parliament of maimed and injured Disabled People they would start to consider Disabled People as part of the population and not some sub-species. Next they will be forcing us to have cosmetics tested on us now that animal testing has been banned
I found this on another forum.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/scotland-21754173
robbing surgeon
Why would anyone consider testing anything on the disabled?, they already offer this service to impoverished students who are daft enough to take it up.
I was desperate a few years back and looked into doing medical tests firstly for money and secondly to avoid tests on animals. However it turned out, of course, that they don’t accept disabled people, people with any health conditions, people on medication, people who can’t have certain ingredients… I was all the above. For the same reason I’m barred from all tests not involving a substance.
Annos I tried to click into your link but no sound and it plays when the puse button is on and tops when it is off, is it me or the link?
guy fawkes,
Works OK for me…
I did not type those errors nor highlight a product on the word button, I wish jv would sort this out like he said he would.
People should check out a page on FB called the No Party. They are trying to offer an alternative, a “Party of the People for the People”.
what is FB?
“Campaigners warn that disabled people could be forced back into institutions due to the closure of the fund as councils seek to cut costs”.
What fucking Institutions? Is there any?
As usual, conspicuous by their absence, the unions dont show any solidarity.
So you missed the Public & Commercial Services speaker at the demo then.
Although this is hasn’t got anything to do with the above article, I think you might find this of interest: It is from a post on Facebook. Would have sent it to you in an e-mail if you’d had one listed on here. It is very worrying and to me marks the first stage in what could be a British 21st Century Holocaust like that which happened to the Jews in Europe in German occupied countries during the second world war and needs to be stopped…
(snipped – jv)
apologies Emily and thanks for commenting, but I’ve snipped this. there’s no evidence it’s true and it’s causing a lot of distress for people. the allegations made would not be legally possible without huge changes to the family courts, child protection laws etc which arent on the cards. at best it may represent a disgruntled DWP employee, who is commenting on what they perceive as direction of travel, things overheard from senior staff, workplace rumours etc, it may also be someone bullshitting or trying to cause trouble for whatever reason.
there is a lot wrong with the troubled families programme, and im sure when it doesnt work it will get much worse, but i think its important to focus on what we know is going to happen rather than speculating about what might happen. hoping to get a piece up on troubled families in the next few days, lots of reading to be done first.
Emily
which group do you belong to and why should your group be chosen to receive it specifically? Perhaps it’s someone trying to scare you if your a single parent group, or perhaps it’s some wishful thinking sicko in the dwp who would like to see such policies implemented,perhaps even be promoting them – only time will tell what this government are able to get away with.
While all that information rings true behaviourally (of the current government), I just can’t see it happening in reality.
Why would it refer to specially trained staff within the department but then go on to mention non-departmental staff like their contractors?
I also see a sort of pointlessness in mentioning targets in respect of both parties considering they have the same goal. I mean, people have targets anyway in terms of mandatory activities and jobseeker’s agreements.
Finally, if for no other reason, the department hasn’t got any qualms implementing horrible policies anyway. So why you think they’d keep something hidden that would potentially hide behind political blame propaganda much better than say, cutting disability support funds, is pretty baffling.
Seriously, if IDS wants to punish families with a questionable social background, he will.
It seems anyone in receipt of benefits in IDS’s mind has a questionable social background, yet in the real world, where half of the cabinets inherited wealth, that has bought them their way to power came from, is the real social background area we should be questioning.
the list of things that makes you a Troubled Family is quite long and includes poverty/unemployment as a factor… it’s bollocks. We have one and they live in Buckingham Palace. When is their taxpayer-funded lifestyle going to stop?
Quite right, the royal family’s money comes from the same place a JSA or benefit claimant’s does, I’d like to see IDS have a go at them – NO CHANCE!
Just think of the bedroom tax that could be raked in off the royals from their umpteen properties, could wipe out the deficit in a couple of years.
why doesn’t the bbc breakfast team get out there and ask the public what they think of bedroom tax for the queen or the mp’s who claim for 11 bedroom mansions at the tax payers expense, instead of questioning taxpayers money spent on the unemployed?
🙂
Reblogged this on HUMAN RIGHTS & POLITICAL JOURNAL and commented:
In Solidarity!!
Pingback: Protesters Gather at the Courts to Save the Independent Living Fund | Human Rights & Political Journal | Scoop.it
Pingback: How the Big Disability Charities Let Down Disabled People … again | the void
Pingback: How the Big Disability Charities Let Down Disabled People … again « HADAG.org.uk