‘Disabled people being left behind in society’ – report
PROGRESS towards real equality for disabled people over the past 20 years is insufficient and littered with missed opportunities and failures, according to a landmark report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Being disabled in Britain: A journey less equal, is the most comprehensive analysis ever undertaken into the rights of disabled people in Wales and across Great Britain.
It provides a damning verdict on how they can expect to be treated.
David Isaac, who chairs the Commission, said; “While at face value we have travelled far, in reality disabled people are being left behind in society, their life chances remain very poor, and public attitudes have changed very little.
“Now is the time for a new national focus on the rights of the 13 million disabled people who live in Britain. They must have the same rights, opportunities and respect as other citizens.
“We must put the rights of disabled
people at the heart of our society. We cannot, and must not, allow the next 20 years to be a repeat of the past.”
June Milligan, who chairs the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Wales committee, added: “This report shows that disabled people in Wales and across Britain are being left behind. The evidence can no longer be ignored. There must be a concerted effort to deliver the changes that are needed.
“This report calls on the UK and Welsh Governments to place a new focus on disability equality, so that the rights of disabled people are fully realised, and to deliver improvements in their experience and outcomes.
“The changes that we need to see include reducing the education and employment gaps for disabled people, ensuring that essential services such as housing, health and transport meet the needs of disabled people, and increasing the number of disabled people in public appointments and politics.”
The report, which covers six key areas of life, finds that disabled people in Wales and across Britain are experiencing disadvantages in all of them, and sets out vital areas for urgent improvement.
Despite significant progress in the laws protecting disabled people’s rights, the report says they are still not being treated as equal citizens and continue to be denied the opportunities and outcomes non-disabled people take for granted.
This includes a lack of equal opportunities in education and employment; barriers to access to transport, health services and housing; the persistent and widening disability pay gap; deteriorating access to justice; and welfare reforms significantly affecting the already low living standards of disabled people.
Control over personal finances and choice about how to spend one’s own money is important to living independently, says the report. Disabled people have less wealth and fewer assets than their non-disabled peers. The longer someone experiences disability the greater the wealth and asset gap. This is because disabled people earn less than non-disabled people and face extra costs – referred to as “the disability penalty”.
The report says that experiences of discrimination among disabled people can relate to misconceptions or a lack of understanding by others who do not believe they are disabled.
Other types of discrimination are described as patronising, or take the form of refusals to make adjustments in public places to accommodate the needs of disabled people. A lack of understanding of individuals’ needs seems particularly evident for those with a mental health condition, learning disability and/or memory impairment.
Disability charities have reported an increase in the number of people contacting them to say they have been taunted on the street for “supposedly faking their disability”, an increase that can be attributed to a narrative of benefit scroungers or fakers that is perpetuated by the UK Government and the media.
Fear of stigmatisation is an important issue for mental health. Both mental health service users and carers reported that their lives were affected by fear of, or perceived, stigma and discrimination.
In addition, frontline staff from local authorities reported that disabled victims often lacked access to advocacy and consequently did not receive necessary support in dealing with and reporting discrimination and hate crime.
The Crown Prosecution Service has reported an increase in prosecutions and convictions for disability hate crime, reporting 941 completed prosecutions for disability hate crime in 2015/16, compared with 666 in the previous year.
Convictions increased by a similar rate during this time, from 503 to 707. The report acknowledged the need for the CPS to improve its performance on conviction rate and sentence uplift.
According to recent CPS data, disability hate crime evidence shows high levels of sexual violence, property offences, and fraud and forgery compared with other forms of hate crime.
The higher rates of property, fraud and sexual offences may reflect that a higher proportion of perpetrators will be personally known to their victim, and more likely to have access to the victim’s finances and their home. Perpetrators of some types of abuse against disabled people can often act as “pretend” friends – sometimes referred to as “mate crime”.
In other cases, perpetrators have been found to be carers and even relatives.
The Commission’s recent submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, produced jointly with the other equality and human rights commissions across the UK, also highlights the need to do more to protect the human rights of disabled people.
It contains 75 recommendations to the UK and devolved governments on how they can improve the rights disabled people enjoy across areas such as housing, transport, social care and employment.
The main public examination of the