Rotten to the core!

Disabled campaigners take action across Scotland

Disabled campaigners will be protesting at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, a disability benefits centre in Glasgow and in City Square, Dundee tomorrow as part of a UK-wide day of action against disability benefit changes.

Protests will be held at many assessment centres run by Atos and Capita, the private companies who hold contracts with the Department for Work and Pensions to test disabled people’s eligibility for the Personal Independence Payment benefit. 

In Glasgow protestors are targetting the ATOS centre off Argyle Street.

Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is the replacement benefit for Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for adults. Disabled people face on average an extra £550 per month unavoidable expenditure as a result of being Disabled. DLA was a non-means tested benefit intended to cover these extra costs in order to enable Disabled people to live life on more even terms with non-Disabled people, including being able to work.

The replacement benefit, PIP, aims to cut drastically entitlement: in June 2010 George Osborne announced a target to cut the DLA budget by 20% through the introduction of PIP.  The switch from DLA to PIP has resulted in 27% of those who have faced re-assessment suffering a complete loss of this benefit.

Despite a public u-turn in March over changes to PIP entitlement concerning aids and appliances following the resignation of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, hundreds of thousands of disabled people will still be
affected and between 400 and 500 adapted cars, powered wheelchairs,
and scooters are being taken away from disabled people every week. As a result disabled people are being left in desperate situations, isolated and frightened for their futures.

In Scotland, PIP is being devolved to Holyrood and campaigners north of the border are demanding that the Scottish Government cover the loss of DLA/PIP for all whose medical status has not changed according to the clinical opinion of their own GPs and specialists, pending the creation of the Scottish  system.

The private firms running the PIP assessments have both been hit by
scandals, meanwhile failing to meet basic performance targets. Capita faced calls to be stripped of its contract for PIP following a Channel Four Dispatches expose earlier this year.

A spokesperson from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) said: “We are constantly being contacted by people who used to received DLA now found ineligible for PIP and are in desperate situations, many of them suicidal or parents besides themselves with anxiety about the future for their Disabled children. That Disabled people should be left unable to meet their basic needs in the fifth richest country in the world is truly disgraceful.”

A spokesperson from Winvisible said: “Atos and Capita are making a killing from killing us, hitting jobseekers with sanctions, making families homeless, and forcing mums and kids to rely on food banks. Given the increased racism generated by Brexit, those of us with disabilities who are also immigrant, Black and or Muslim fear that we will targeted both on the street and when we apply for PIP.”

The day of action has been called jointly by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Mental Health Resistance Network and WinVisible.  The protests in Edinburgh also involve Black Triangle, Disability History Scotland and Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty. The Dundee demo is organised by Scottish Unemployed Workers Network.  There will be protests in at least 17 towns and cities, plus an online protest with a mass complaint to MPs and twitterstorm directed at Atos and Capita and the DWP.