'Welfare reform has cost disabled people and their carers £500 million so far'

The Demos Think Tank has found that since its inception 14 months ago welfare reform has cost disabled people and their carers £500 million. These findings are part of the Disability in Austerity project Demos has undertaken with support from Scope. Six disabled households were followed so assess how a range of benefit and service cuts affect their lives. 

The report found that parents of a disabled child are £410 worse off. A disabled mother and her disabled child are £558 worse off in the study. These losses aren't small for the lowest income households because, Demos argues, these households deal with higher living costs as they manage their health conditions.

The Demos study also reflects on the human cost of welfare reform. They heard how people couldn't afford replacement wheels for wheelchairs. How parents had to skip hospital appointments for their disabled child because they couldn't afford the diesel. How one couple had to stay home as they couldn't afford to go out, and another couldn't afford to stay home due to heating costs.

Demos identified longer term trends that have become apparent throughout the research:

There has been deterioration in mental health. Reports of stress and depression for the disabled people in the study and their families became more prevalent over the two years. Financial hardship has made life harder, there is the uncertainty and fear of what the future holds as new reforms take effect, and there is a felt sense of hostility from the state as disabled people are treated with suspicion by welfare authorities and harangued in the media, Demos claims.

There has been growing isolation and exclusion from community life as families move into what might be described as ‘survival mode’: a lack of resources and the closure of support services has led to families reducing their activities to the very basics, often within the home. So essentials such as medical appointments have been sacrificed, alongside ‘luxuries’ such as working, training and volunteering. Leisure pursuits and socialising are out of the question. Decades of work by disabled people and charities to promote inclusion and equality of access to a social, working and community life is unravelling as disabled people become socially and financially excluded and isolated in their homes.

The burden on informal carers is increasing as formal support – or the resources to buy financial support – is cut away, the Demos study found. The parents of the two disabled children in the study felt that they would not receive any help from the state until they had reached ‘breaking point’, and were told – as support was taken from them – that they ‘should be able to cope’. All reported physical and mental ill health resulting from their burden of care.

The report concludes that this presents a bleak picture for disabled people with more issues to arise as only 12% of the government’s austerity plans have been implemented. Key welfare reforms – such as the replacement of Disability Living Allowance – are yet to come. Local authorities have three quarters of their budget cuts still to make. Although disabled people and their carers are £500 million worse off to date, Demos predicts that this group will lose £9 billion by 2015-16.

The full report is HERE

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