Something that might help us understand what has been happening. Equality Impact Assessments (EIAs) are procedures that are supposed to be carried out whenever any new policy or procedure is initiated. The idea is to look at whether the policy has any adverse impact on minorities, including the disabled.
All organisations have to produce these for every aspect of their work, and as it is a very repetitive exercise, EIAs are notoriously badly written. But one would expect Government departments to set the example, not lag way behind.
The DWP's EIAs can be found at https//www.gov.uk/government/collections/welfare-reform-act-2012-equality-impact-assessments (Had to enter this by hand rather than cut and paste so hope it works)
The EIA for DLA Reform is dated May 2012, but it reads more like a rationale for the reform than an impact assessment.
Risk of Negative Impact (paragraphs 26 and 27) sums up their idea of a proper EIA:
"Replacing Disability Living Allowance with a new benefit that is focussed on supporting those individuals with the greatest barriers to participation provides an opportunity to promote equality of opportunity for disabled people least likely to live full and active lives. However as the benefit becomes better tergeted on those with the greatest needs, it is likely that some disabled people who may have self-assessed as needing support, but have lesser barriers to participation, will receive reduced support".
"Where these individuals have a carer in receipt of Carer's Allowance this will also result in some loss of benefit due to the knock-on effects of reform. This woyuld appear to be more likely to have an effect on disabled people, as carers are more likely to be disabled than the population in general".
Far from being EIA this is just more rationale - justification and excuses. They are supposed to look at adverse impacts. Paragraphs 19 and 20 on Gender Differences may be more revealing:
"At this stage, no potential adverse impacts on either gender have been identified on those receiving Disability Living Allowance. As the numbers of men and women receiving Disability Living Allowance is almost equal there is no reason to suggest that either men or women are more likely to be affected by the new benefit - either directly or indirectly".
"However the picture is less clear cut in relation to the knock-on effects of DLA reform on those receiving Carer's Allowance Payments. Although we have not been able to specifically model gender effects, the descriptive analysis shows that females are more likely to be entitled to Carer's Allowance and are more likely to be receiving payment. Our impact analysis concludes that the overall Carer's Allowance caseload will remain similar afterr the introduction of Personal Independence Payment, the evidence suggests that those most likely to be affected are more likely to be female"
Because ethnicity is under 7% of the population they don't see a problem. And age doesn't matter as they are only dealing with work age, though according to them we retire at 64?
In other words they haven't done an EIA at all. They are just presenting their own ill-thought out case. Given how strictly companies and organisation had to adhere to EIA procedures, does it surprise anyone that DWP considers itself exempt?
But there is still the underlying problem, that they confuse disability and medical condition. Table 5 lists the conditions that they are referring to:
Aids (0%), Arthritis (18%), back ailments (5%), blindness (2%), chest diseas (3%), deafness (1%) Diabetes mellitus (2%), epilepsy (2%)
