Category Archives: Cuts

Big society, Community, Cuts, Education, Employment, media & communication, Mental health, Music & arts, Philanthropy, Poverty, Social exclusion, Third sector, Uncategorized, Volunteering, Young people

Art for all: the Surrey gallery that targets a hidden need

May 16, 2017 Saba Salman Leave a comment

Blue Figure, print, by Tendai from Feltham youth offender institution.

Leafy and affluent are default shorthands when describing the English county of Surrey, but the council ward of Westborough, Guildford, has the highest number of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) in the county. Child poverty is high in Westborough, and around a quarter of all female prisoners in the UK are in custody in Surrey, including a number of lifers at HMP Send.

While the cash-strapped Tory-run council recently grabbed headlines with a threat to raise council tax by a huge 15% , this has done little to shed light on the social needs that exist in Surrey.

The issue of how Surrey’s general wealth hides specific pockets of deprivation is outlined in a new report into the social and community impact of Watts Gallery Artists’ Village (WGAV), in Compton, about a 10 minute drive from Westborough.

The gallery, opened in 1904 and dedicated to the work of Victorian artist George Frederic Watts, aims to transform lives through art – “Art for All” (Barack Obama, among others, has cited Watts as an inspiration). The report, Art for All: Inspiring, Learning and Transforming at Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village, describes the overlooked needs. It underlines the organisation’s role, for example, running artist-led workshops with prisoners and young offenders – I’m sharing some of the works here – as well as community projects, schools and and youth organisations.

The Journey, water-based oil on canvas, by Dena from HMP Send.

There are, as the report states, six prisons situated within 25 miles of the gallery, including two for young offenders and two for women. More than 420 prisoners and young offenders took part in workshops over the least year and WGAV has had an artist in residence at HMP Send for over 10 years.

Close Up, oil on canvas by Samantha from HMP Send, part of Watts Gallery’s community outreach work.

The report has been commissioned by Watts Gallery Trust and written by Helen Bowcock, a philanthropist and donor to WGAV and, as such, a “critical friend”. Bowcock argues that, despite the impression of affluence, Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village “is located in an area that receives significantly less public funding per capita than other areas of the UK”. The argument is that local arts provision in Surrey depends more on the charity and community sectors and voluntary income than it does elsewhere in the country (the concept that philanthropy, volunteering and so-called “big society” – RIP – only works in wealthy areas is something I wrote about in this piece a few years ago).

As public sector funding cuts continue and community-based projects are further decimated, Watt’s words are as relevant today as they were during his Victorian lifetime: “I paint ideas, not things. My intention is less to paint works that are pleasing to the eye than to suggest great thoughts which will speak to the imagination and the heart and will arouse all that is noblest and best in man.”

Brighton, mixed media on paper, by Jenny from HMP Send.

More information on the gallery’s community engagement and outreach programme is here.

Community, Cuts, Disability, Health, Housing, Local government, Mental health, Music & arts, Older people, Social care, Uncategorized, Wellbeing

Why we need to save sheltered housing from more cuts

May 10, 2017 Saba Salman Leave a comment

“A certain amount of support has gone, so this has made people themselves more involved with each other – we get together more.”

I spoke to older people like Val, Rene and Jane, who live in sheltered housing on the south coast, for a piece in the Guardian this morning; the comment above reflects how the kind of housing they live in has changed radically in recent decades.

Rene spoke to me about the shock felt by residents as support services are cut, their criticism of government and the need to rally round and adapt (with peer-to-peer support, for example) as help is scaled back.

Over 20 years ago, for example, the Worthing Homes sheltered complex I visited had housing staff onsite who ran activities. Now, thanks to years of government cutbacks to sheltered housing support, there are three frontline staff rotating across up to 2,000 homes in the region, depending on need, and drop-in sessions run by external experts.

General sheltered housing, like that run by Worthing Homes, offers low-level support and self-contained accommodation for low income people aged 55 or older. Benefits include greater independence and less reliance on health and social care.

But this kind of housing has suffered thanks to historic and widespread cuts to the supporting people fund (the national programme for housing related support available to councils). Now, it is at further risk. The government was forced last year to defer its unpopular decision to impose a cap on housing benefit to supported housing; the proposal was included in a recent government consultation and is due to covered in a forthcoming green paper. Campaigners including the National Housing Federation (NHF) have been challenging the funding plans, with Age UK warning of “uncertainty about the future of sheltered housing in the social rented sector”.

Residents’ concerns over the loss of on site staff in sheltered housing are well documented, but years of central and local government cuts mean that it is now the norm for on-site staff to be axed in favour of telecare and floating support (short-term help with specific problems like benefits). There are no precise figures, but a 2012 review by Joseph Rowntree Foundation noted that as far back as 2009, local authorities estimated that by 2011, 38% of sheltered housing would have floating support, not on-site provision.

The approach in the Worthing region, an area known for its high proportion of older people, underlines the value of sheltered housing as the population ages, and mirrors similar moves across the country.

Communal garden, Pearson’s Court sheltered housing scheme in Worthing, West Sussex.

Simon Anderson, Worthing Homes head of customer services, says the landlord and residents have tried to work together since the council funding cut: “We were asked to do much more work for less money…but ultimately this is a housing provider and its residents coming together [through agreeing new initiatives] at a time of austerity”.

A 2012 Age UK report, Making it Work for Us [pdf] suggests “listening and responding to the views of residents should be fundamental in shaping what sheltered and retirement housing offers”. Simon explains: “Some people who moved in when there was someone [staff] here all the time…Now they’ll be thinking ‘I didn’t sign up for this’…So in conjunction with them, we began discussions on what the future service would look like. Social isolation was a significant issue for many”.

With the green paper on such issues due after the election, and further funding changes looming, Simon acknowledges “the lack of clarity and certainty”, yet he is resolute: “We have no plans to withdraw our sheltered schemes as they bring significant benefits to our residents as well as savings to the public purse by maintaining our residents’ health, tenancies and independence.”

You can read the full piece here.

Autism, Cuts, Disability, Employment, Health, Learning disability, Local government, Mental health

The disability and employment gap: interview

April 10, 2017 Saba Salman Leave a comment

Around 49% of disabled people in the UK aged 16–64 are in work, compared with 81% of non-disabled people, according to government figures.

The government has said it wants to narrow this gap (the figure has remained the same for decades) but at the same time its various policies and cuts relating to disabled people undermine this aim. A recent government green paper on work, health and employment, proposes to help at least 1 million disabled people into work, but has met with a lukewarm response from campaigners.

This was the context to a recent interview with Gareth Parry, the chief executive of employment organisation Remploy, which has £50m of contracts from central and local government to help disabled people get jobs or support them back into work.

Parry, who worked his way up Remploy after starting as a trainee almost 30 years ago, has depression, something that he says gives him a more personal insight into his job running employment support organisation (“It reinforced the importance of organisations like Remploy; work gave me routine, structure, focus, when everything else in my life was in chaos”).

He is a forthright speaker about how his personal experience influences his role at the helm of an organisation aiming to support people with mental health issues; he wants more senior executives to be open about mental ill-health, for example.

The organisation, however, has its critics. While Remploy was launched by the postwar government in 1945 to give disabled second world war veterans sheltered employment, the last factories closed in 2013 in line with the idea that mainstream employment was preferable to segregated jobs. Yet many felt the closures abandoned disadvantaged people.

More recently, in April 2015, Remploy was outsourced to a joint venture between US-born international outsourcing giant Maximus – which has come under fire as the provider of the Department for Work and Pensions’ controversial “fit for work” tests – and Remploy’s employees, who have a 30% stake in the business. Critics say that being owned by Maximus undermines Remploy’s status as a champion of disabled people.

Parry rejects such suggestions: “I can understand why people would see it that way, but we have a strong social conscience, the employee ownership keeps us focused on that, the profits don’t go overseas to America, they go back into the [Remploy] business.”

Longer term, Parry believes Remploy could take on international work, like advising other countries on closing sheltered factories. He adds: “Our mission around equality in the workplace has always been and is within the confines of the UK, but if we want to make a real difference in society in the UK, the opportunity we have now is to say ‘why stop there?’” Future issues in employment support, he adds, include sustaining an ageing workforce, with help for issues like dementia in the workplace and other age-related conditions.

In terms of other changes, Parry’s words on the rise of online support (as opposed to face to face advice) reflect a general trend towards more online and digital support: “I’m not suggesting online will replace face-to-face services, but the idea of giving the power of choice to the individual as to how they access services is meaningful”.

Remploy is almost unrecognisable in terms of its remit, ownership structure and operations since its inception more than 70 years ago; as the government and local government contracts on which it once relied are dwindling, it will be interesting to see where the next few years take Remploy – and, most importantly, those it helps.

The full interview is here.

Autism, Bullying, Cuts, Disability, Domestic violence, Education, Employment, Health, Learning disability, Local government, Mental health, Uncategorized, Wellbeing, Young people

Campaigner Jonathan Andrews on the talents and skills of autistic people

January 31, 2017 Saba Salman Leave a comment

Jonathan Andrews was once advised to hide his autism from prospective employers. Instead, he is making his name by doing just the opposite.

The 22-year-old recently won campaigner of the year at the European Diversity Awards 2016 and talked to me about his work for a Guardian interview.

He’s involved in a plethora of awareness-raising projects, including sitting on the first parliamentary commission on autism. He also advised the government on its green paper on work, health and employment, which is out to consultation until later this month.

The graduate, who is an academic high-flyer, starts a trainee solicitor role later this year. He believes a law career will enable him to create practical change, but says combining law with campaigning is crucial. As he explains: “There is only so far legislation can go…you need to be winning hearts and minds to get change.” For his views on work and disability, see the full interview here.

He credits his family for their supportive role in his campaigning and he speaks powerfully about how his younger brother defended him against school bullies (“It was words like ‘retard’”). Jonathan stressed that it was in fact his brother who found it harder to deal with the verbal abuse: “I developed a thick skin, people used to tease me, but I always felt there would always be people like that and it was best not to focus on them. I came out in a better state than my brother, because I could shut it out and carry on – but for people who love you, it [trying to rise above verbal abuse directed at a relative] can be harder.”

An autism diagnosis at nine was, he says, useful in understanding his needs, but some of his parents’ friends reacted with sympathy. “The instant reaction was ‘I’m so sorry’. My mum would say ‘why?’ She said ‘my son hasn’t become autistic because of this diagnosis – it lets me understand it [autism] better; he’s always been my boy and is the same person he always was’.”

What struck me about Jonathan’s work – aside from the huge amount of awareness-raising at such a young age – is that he works on a range of diversity issues; along with autism, he raises awareness of mental health issues and LGBT equality. For example, he’s launching a best practice autism toolkit with the Commonwealth disability working group in April and hosting a related Commonwealth Day event in March.

He is also involved in promoting LGBT rights as co-founder of professional network the London Bisexual Network, challenging the idea that an autistic person “is not a sexual being because you are somehow ‘other’”. He adds of his campaigning on autism as well as LGBT issues: “People often think with autism you have to be interested in one thing and this means that you are great in one area and terrible at everything else.”

He also works to educate young people about domestic violence. He explains: “When I was child and I saw something that was wrong, I wanted to correct it and when I see something that is blatant injustice I just want to do what I can to help…[with domestic violence campaigning] I know what is is like to have a stable family, family that loves you, and I want others to be able to experience that.”

In fact, his broad range of campaigning interests reflects the change in attitudes which he is trying to achieve through his work: “People often think with autism you have to be interested in one thing and this means that you are great in one area and terrible at everything else.

The full interview is here.
You can follow Jonathan on Twitter @JonnyJAndrews

Community, Cuts, Local government, media & communication, Philanthropy, Third sector, Volunteering, Young people

Using tech to transform philanthropy

December 5, 2016 Saba Salman Leave a comment

Tech entrepreneur Alexandre Mars is known in his native France as the French Bill Gates. Having made his fortune creating and selling tech startups, Mars, 41, founded Epic Foundation two years ago. In an interview for The Guardian, Mars explains how his orgnaisation aims to encourage tech-savvy investors to donate to children’s and young people’s charities it has selected.

The UK was recently ranked eighth in an annual global league table for individual giving. Figures from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations suggest we donated £19.4bn to the UK voluntary sector in 2013-14. This is 44% of the voluntary sectors’ income.

Mars believes a debate is needed “to explore opportunities and strategies for increasing giving”. At at time when trust in charities is at an all-time low following criticism of some traditional fundraising practices, new ways of engaging donors through technology is surely needed. Such challenges are expected to feature in next year’s House of Lords select committee report on charities, with its focus on digital innovation and financial sustainability.

How does he define the role of philanthropists versus the state? “We need policymakers, we need strong leaders … [but] they don’t have enough money, so where is it [the money]? It’s with the corporate world most of the time, so how can we [business] just step up?”

Read the rest of the interview here.

Cuts, Disability, Legal Aid, Third sector, Uncategorized

The disability activist fighting injustice

March 30, 2016 Saba Salman Leave a comment

Social policy professor Peter Beresford once described Doug Paulley, who I interviewed for today’s Guardian, as as a “caped care home crusader”.

Paulley is known for his wheelchair priority case against transport company FirstGroup, hinging on whether bus firms are required to force people with pushchairs to vacate wheelchair spaces.

His initial win was overturned on appeal and is due to be heard in the Supreme Court in June in a move that could, as campaign group Transport for All says, “set a legal precedent for enforceable priority over wheelchair space”. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) supports Paulley’s case, and his awareness-raising helped win him the Sheila McKechnie Foundation award for campaigner of the year 2015.

Paulley has won almost all the 40 disability discrimination cases he has launched over the last decade. Paulley, who lives in a care home and uses a wheelchair, is an activist, not a lawyer. He has represented himself in all but three actions, challenging equality and accessibility barriers in organisations from pub chains to supermarkets and theatre firms. He has won around £10,000 in compensation over 10 years, he estimates, by bringing complaints under the Equality Act in the small claims court.

He welcomes last weeks damning Lords select committee report on the Equality Act 2010 and disability, which chastises the government for failing disabled people in its duty of care. Paulley was invited to give evidence to the select committee and is quoted in the report.

He answers critics who claim he’s motivated by money or that he enjoys being “a bully” – in fact he often donates damages to activist groups and stresses that the compensation amounts involved are “dwarfed by legal fees” – a reference to high-earning lawyers who represent service providers (the small claims court maximum award is £10,000 but discrimination-related claims generally fall between £600 and £6,000).

The full piece on Paulley, who volunteers at a local Oxfam and has fundraised for disability charity the Calvert Trust, is here.

Cuts, Disability, Learning disability, media & communication, Music & arts, Third sector, Uncategorized

How cuts affect disabled people: “We’re going backwards – and fast”

March 17, 2016 Saba Salman Leave a comment

Public artwork from DaDaFest in January (photo: DaDaFest)

Coverage of the budget has been dominated by a focus on George Osborne’s headline-grabbing sugar tax, although it’s not quite enough to detract from the unfair deal for the embattled social care sector (check Twitter for #carecrisis to get a flavour of the feeling). The chancellor’s other measures are regarded as the ‘last straw’ for disabled people, already being hit by cuts, and he is now under fire from rebellious backbenchers opposing the £4.4bn cuts to disability benefits.

As Ruth Gould, the artistic director of the UK’s biggest disability arts event, DaDaFest, pointed out in an interview I did with her for the Guardian, the latest cuts threaten to make disabled people “more invisible”. The work of disabled artists, as she says, is also at risk, thanks to sharp reductions in funding from local authorities and Arts Council England (Ace).

In 2001, Gould organised a one-off community arts event for Liverpool city council to mark International Disabled Peoples’ Day. As the head of the North West Disability Arts Forum (NWDAF), Gould, who is deaf, argued a single day was inadequate, and designed a groundbreaking week-long festival.

Fifteen years on, DaDaFest is the UK’s biggest disability arts event and Gould its artistic director. The NWDAF eventually adopted the name of the jewel in its crown (“DaDa” refers to the initial letters of each word in the phrase “disability and deaf arts”), so DaDaFest refers to both the festival and its parent charity. Each biennial extravaganza draws 10,000 visitors and participants. It has launched the careers of comedian Laurence Clark and actor Liz Carr, and helped Liverpool win European Capital of Culture 2008.

Last week, as something of a curtain raiser to 2016’s two-week festival in November, DaDaFest held a seminar on the barriers to disability arts for black and minority ethnic people (BME). The awareness raising event complemented DaDaFest’s play, Unsung, recently performed at the Everyman theatre, based on the life of 18th century blind Liverpool poet, abolitionist and disability rights pioneer Edward Rushton.

Gould commends the Arts Council’s Creative Case for Diversity, launched in 2014 to encourage more BME, deaf and disabled people into arts, but fears such efforts are a drop in the ocean. She explains: “We don’t have the disabled people who put people on the stage – the producers, the casting directors, curators, decision makers.” She adds of DaDaFest’s recent BME seminar: “We tried to attract those we see as gatekeepers…[to] look at the barriers and issues and use them to try and influence change by identifying benchmarks that we can reflect onto to see if change if happening.”

Recent figures show just 2% of the arts workforce is disabled, an increase of 0.2% on previous year. With 19% of the UK registered disabled and the employment rate among disabled people at 46% (around 30% lower than the rate among able bodied people), this highlights the poor representation of disabled people in the arts.

You can read the rest of the interview here.

DaDaFest 2016 takes place in November.

Community, Cuts, Disability, Learning disability, Social care, Uncategorized

Potential, not prejudice: photo project challenges disability stereotypes

February 8, 2016 Saba Salman Leave a comment

When newlywed Tessa got back to the hotel with husband Mark after their wedding, she found he’d arranged a surprise – he had scattered flowers and balloons around the room.

As Tessa recalls in a new project and book, Great Interactions by photographer Polly Braden: “I kept laughing at Mark – he was trying to throw the flowers around me…He’s happy now he’s married. We love each other. Being married doesn’t feel any different. That’s it. It makes me feel happy. Mark’s already got his name, so his wife will be Tessa Jane Ahrens, that’s mine and Mark’s choice. I used to be Warhurst – not anymore now. When my bus pass has run out they’re going to change my name on it.”

Tessa and Mark on their wedding day, Tring Church, Hertfordshire

The couple’s story is one of many documented in Braden’s book and exhibition. The project aims to capture the daily lives of people with learning disabilities, from everyday interactions to landmark events like Mark and Tessa’s wedding. The book will be published next month and the images will also be featured in an exhibition at the National Media Museum, Bradford.

Polly Braden spent two years working with social care charity MacIntyre and the people it supports across the UK. The resulting work, refreshingly, offers a glimpse of the diverse, individual, ordinary lives of people with learning disabilities – around 1.5m people in the UK have a learning disability, but the population, usually seen as a homogeneous mass or single statistic, is defined by needs and lack of ability, as opposed to current or future potential.

Braden’s project also comes at a time when public sector funding cuts threaten vital support services and, as I’ve written before, families fear that the long-promised improvements to the care of people with learning disabilities may never happen.

Caroline and David, Holmewood Community Centre

Braden’s work does not gloss over the problems, but offers a different perspective. She explains: “The people I have met all have stories about the barriers, prejudice and ignorance they and their loved ones have faced in simply trying to have fair opportunities in life. But their stories are also inspiring and filled with heart-warming moments which would have seemed impossible to imagine earlier in their lives – from being active and using public transport to graduating from high school and getting married.”

Aja with Farah, MacIntyre No Limits, Oxfordshire — Aja with Farah, at an Oxfordshire support scheme

Raymond and Peter, Christmas Party 2014, Civic Hall, Ellesmere Port, Cheshire

The photographer’s aim was to try to take photos about support “at the best it can be, but not to gloss over the profound problems in the provision of care and support and the challenges around this as well”. The project tries to look at what can be achieved for people when they are given good support, “and to talk about what happens when they are not”.

The aim of the project is “to challenge out-dated, institutionalised images and improve public awareness by recognising and highlighting the every day interactions and life changing experience of people with a learning disability”. It also focuses on social care professionals’ attitudes towards and relationship with the people they support. As one support worker, Raul, told Braden of the person he works with: “Mikey needs this kind of support: he needs to be around people who know and understand him, who are willing to go a step further and discover the bright and amazing person he is.”

Becky, Stephanie and Lesley, dance and movement class, St Elphin’s community centre

Sarah and Zoe, Great Holm Coffee Shop, Milton Keynes

Charles with Callum, MacIntyre School, Wingrave, Buckinghamshire

* All photographs by Polly Braden, the book Great Interactions is out in March and the six-week exhibition at the National Media Museum, Bradford, opens on 27 February.
* To mark the book’s launch, the National Media Museum and MacIntyre are asking people to share photos of “everyday moments that make life matter” on Instagram, using the hashtag #IamMe – see the website for more information
* For more reading, see this Guardian feature published at the weekend..

This blog was amended on Monday 29 February to include the Great Interactions Live website

Cuts, Disability, Learning disability, Mental health, Social exclusion

Bittersweet birthday for landmark disability law

October 2, 2015 Saba Salman Leave a comment

“Laws are all very well, but it’s people’s attitudes that need to change.” This comment from actor and Mencap ambassador Sarah Gordy pretty well sums up opinions about the impact of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995.

The act, 20 years old this autumn, was regarded as weaker than hoped for by campaigners – not least because its ideals were hard to enforce – and it was replaced by the Equality Act 2010 combining all anti-discrimination legislation under one law.

Back in 1995, beginning my working life, I remember talk and action relating to the most visible aspects of the new law – the installation of ramps in the workplace, for example, and accessibility on public transport.

But while such physical impact of the landmark law may be easy to spot in terms of the act’s legacy, what of the law’s less tangible elements, such as cultural attitudes to disability? Then there are the current welfare reforms and austerity measures that threaten to undermine the progress of anti-discrimination legislation and human rights.

Recent research, such as a report by Demos and Scope, Destination Unknown, outlines the disproportionate effect on disabled people of cuts to benefits including Disability Living Allowance (DLA), Employment and Support Allowance and housing benefit. Other reforms include the closure of the Independent Living Fund (ILF) and changes to unemployment benefit.

Speaking to disability campaigners and activities for a Guardian piece recently was a good litmus test for the act’s legacy. For example, Debbie Domb, of Hammersmith and Fulham Disabled People’s Organisations Network, “welfare cuts are pushing us further out of sight to the margins of society”. Activist Wendy Perez of LDA (Learning Disability Alliance) England says disabled people are now “treated like scroungers and as people who just take”: “In the last few years it feels like things have gone backwards. There used to be a lot of hope; but now it feels like hope is gone.”

As mental health campaigner Lol Butterfield, who has blogged on this site, says: “The Disability Discrimination Act has provided protection and support for people experiencing mental health conditions but we can never become complacent. We must always be reviewing its use and strength in these times of discrimination against the mentally ill. I have witnessed many positive changes within mental health services and society over all these years. But sadly we still have a long way to go.”

Baroness Jane Campbell, crossbench peer, disability rights campaigner, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Disability Group, adds: “I was extremely privileged to be part of shaping and helping implement the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). This brought rights into disabled peoples’ lives, gradually replacing the culture of welfare and charity. Sadly, the momentum was never maintained as we had dreamed.

For Clenton Farquharson, disability and equality campaigner and director of community interest company Community Navigator Services, the DDA meant suddenly he was not longer invisible: “I had a right to be noticed…But 20 years on, sadly, there is still no monitoring or enforcing of the Act, leaving us to fight as individuals for our legal rights — and that is a daunting, expensive, and dispiriting process.”

The DDA still symbolises a turning point for disability rights but while it was launched in a hopeful fanfare, two decades on for many people, the legislation rings hollow.

Cuts, Disability, Health, Local government, Social care, Uncategorized

Disability, demonstration and debate: Jane Campbell

July 8, 2015 Saba Salman Leave a comment

“The cabbage has a brain,” is, it’s safe to say, not the response that Jane Campbell’s prospective employers expected when they commented on her encyclopedic knowledge of social care during an interview for a new job.

That job, as founding executive chair of the Social Care Institute for Excellence in 2001, is just one of many high profile roles the 56-year-old cross bench peer (Baroness Jane Campbell of Surbiton, to give her the full title) has had in a career spanning some of the most pivotal moments in disability rights.

Campbell is one of the most influential figures in UK disability rights but there is still more than a hint of origins as a grassroots activist about her, as I explain in an interview for today’s Guardian.

For example, she recently resisted the temptation, she says, to join a protest she spotted against the government’s closure of the independent living fund (ILF) on her way into the House of Lords. The £320m programme that funds 18,000 disabled people’s community-based care was axed last month; Campbell, who campaigned for its creation 30 years ago, had spearheaded the fight to save it.

She is a determined speaker on how austerity measures and welfare reforms adversely affect disabled people. As she told the Lords in response to the recent Queen’s speech, “it doesn’t feel like a great time to be disabled”.

Those who are already the most marginalised in our communities risk being further left behind. This false economy, as Campbell last year suggested, means the government “risks sleepwalking towards the status of a systematic violator of these same rights”.

This is why, as Campbell told me, it is vital that disability be seen as a human rights issue: “If I can do anything in my life, it is to bring disability out of the medical model and dump it where it should be – right back in society.”

One recent success was to bring a private members bill to ensure that people with disabilities who are supported by councils will still get that support if they move to another local authority.

The full interview is here but, just for the record, this potted version of Campbell’s CV reflects why she has been awarded not one, but two, lifetime achievement awards (from human rights organization Liberty in 2009 and this week’s one from social justice thinktank Bevan Foundation), an MBE, a DBE and two honorary degrees:
June 2015-present: member, post-legislative scrutiny select committee, Equality Act 2010, disability provisions
2007-present: independent crossbench peer, House of Lords
2006-09: chair, disability committee, and commissioner, Equality and Human Rights Commission
2008-2014: co-chair, All Party Parliamentary Disability Group
2008-2013: member, House of Lords appointments commission
2010-2012: member, House of Lords joint committee on human rights
2009-2011: chair, Independent Living Scrutiny Group, Office for Disability Issues (ODI), DWP
2008-2012: chair, Advisory Group on Right to Control, ODI
2008-2009: member, standing commission on Carers
2006-2009: chair, Disability Committee, and commissioner, Equality and Human Rights Commission
2006-2007: chair of the Independent Living Review Expert Panel, ODI
2001-2005: executive chair, Social Care Institute for Excellence
2000-2007: commissioner, Disability Rights Commission
1996-2012: co-director (to 2000), then trustee, National Centre for Independent Living
1994-1996: independent consultant on direct payments
1991-1995: co-chair British Council of Disabled People
1988-1994: director of training, London Boroughs Disability Resource Team
1987-1988: principal disability advisor, London Borough of Hounslow
1986-1987: disability training development officer, London Boroughs Disability Resource Team
1984-1986: equal opportunities liaison officer, Greater London Council

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