1 The Broadest Shoulders? Disabled People and “Welfare Reform”

Inclusion Scotland has been actively opposing the current drift of “welfare reforms” since well before the Coalition Government took power. It was the last Labour Government who introduced the Work Capability Assessment regime and gave ATOS (a private sector firm specialising in IT) the contract to carry out the assessments. It was they too who first indulged in the “strivers v skivers ” rhetoric that has done so much to poison public debate and stigmatise all benefit recipients as “skivers”. Why have we been so opposed to “reforms ” when their stated aim is to improve and simplify the complex benefit system? Because they do nothing of the sort and are instead a cover for cuts to the living standards of unemployed, low paid and disabled people. The reforms also apply a “one size fits all ” approach to service delivery that does not take into account the barriers experienced by those with learning difficulties, mental health issues, sensory or physical impairments. Instead it would hardly be hyperbole to claim that current welfare reforms may represent the single greatest threat to disabled people’s right and ability to live independently in over a generation. When the Coalition Government introduced its austerity agenda they claimed that the ‘deepest cuts would fall on the broadest shoulders’. Instead most cuts (other than tax cuts for high earners!) are falling on those already poor and excluded. Disabled people, along with women, seem to have been singled out for the most savage cuts. Scale of the Cuts: Households containing a disabled person are being subjected to over half of the total of £22 billion of benefit cuts already announced (Grant & Woo