Disability and Voluntarism, 1965-95 – An effective force in policy making?

Gareth Millward – 3rd Year PhD (supervisor Dr Martin Gorsky)London School of Hygiene and Tropical MedicineProject funded by the Wellcome Trust

Centre for History in Public Health

Improving health worldwide www.lshtm.ac.uk

DIG

RADARCCD

BCRD

DA

BCODP

Spastics Society

CS & Disabled Persons Act

Disabled Persons

(SCaR) Act

Disability Discrimination

Act

UPIAS

OPCS Survey

Disabled Persons Act

International Year of Disabled People

CORAD

Civil Rights Bills

Disabled Persons

(Employment) Act 1944

SJC

New invalidity benefits

Disability Working and Living

Allowances

Rights Now!

SCOPE

Personal Capacity

Assessments

1965 199519901985198019751970

A Simplified Time Line

The social model

• Disability is a social issue• Impairment only becomes

disability because society makes it so

• A fair society would allow impaired people the same chances to live as autonomously as non-impaired people

Effective?

• Whiggish interpretation – “progress” is made

• Excellent manipulation of “problem” and “politics”

• Poor at influencing “solution”

The Times, 15th November 1971, p. 1.

There has been a growing demand, of which that remarkable organisation the Disablement Income Group has been the spearhead, for special provision over and above what is already given for anyone seriously handicapped on disablement. We have all been deeply moved by the lives as well as the words of people like Anne Armstrong and Megan du Boisson. Without them it may well be that Clause 17 would never have found its place in the Bill. The Government can claim credit for listening to people who knew all too well what they were talking about.

Effective?

Richard Crossman, 1970, Secretary of State for Social Services in the second reading of the National Superannuation and Social Insurance Bill 1969. HC Deb 19 January 1970 vol. 794 c. 64.

This money resolution arises because, as the result of great ingenuity, amendments were carried in Committee which brought disabled housewives into the position in which they could have been paid out of the National Insurance Fund. That ingenuity was, in fact, that of Mr. Peter Large and Mr. Stuart Lyon, of the Disablement Income Group. They are well known to hon. Members who follow this subject. They provided the drafting for extremely carefully chosen amendments which (Mr. Carter-Jones) and (Mr. Dunlop), were able to carry against the Government votes in Committee.

Effective?

Kenneth Clarke, 1975, opposition spokesman in committee on the Social Security Bill 1974. HC Deb 29 January 1975 vol. 885 c. 423.

A leading article in ‘The Spectator’ was able to say that “of all the pressure groups which harry government – especially the social welfare pressure groups – none is more mature, more influential, more considered in its actions than the Disablement Income Group”. Whether this is true or not, this kind of belief has given DIG both authority and charisma.

Effective?

Internal DHSS Memo, 1972, TNA: BN 89/140, Study Group on Cash Benefits for the Disabled, CBD2, The Disablement Income Group, 15 December 1972, paras. 1, 11.

Outcome Examples

• DDA employment sections did not apply to businesses employing fewer than 20 people

• New capacity tests looked at medically ascertainable functional limitations – not disease nomenclature

• Benefits paid more equally based on need – but still at levels far too low to alleviate poverty

1960/61

1962/63

1964/65

1966/67

1968/69

1970/71

1972/73

1974/75

1976/77

1978/79

1980/81

1982/83

1984/85

1986/87

1988/89

1990/91

1992/93

1994/95

1996/97

1998/99

2000/01 £30.00

£40.00

£50.00

£60.00

£70.00

£80.00

£90.00

£100.00

£110.00

£120.00

£130.00

Weekly Rates of Selected Benefits 1960/61 - 2001/02, at 2002 Prices

Invalidity Benefit

Incapacity Benefit (Long Term)

Retirement Pension (Single Person)

Unemployment Benefit (Men, Single Women, Widows)

Attendance Allowance (Higher Rate) and Disability Living Allowance (Care Component, Higer Rate)

War Pension (Private, 100%)

Disablement Pension (100%)

Effective?

1960/61

1962/63

1964/65

1966/67

1968/69

1970/71

1972/73

1974/75

1976/77

1978/79

1980/81

1982/83

1984/85

1986/87

1988/89

1990/91

1992/93

1994/95

1996/97

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

Expenditure on Disability Benefits by Type of Benefit, at 1998 Prices

Income Re-placement

Extra Costs

Compensation

Expe

nditu

re (£

mill

ions

)

Effective?

We have very grave misgivings [...] about resources being devoted to cultivating so-called wet Tory MPs or to direct meetings with Conservative Ministers.

Against the backdrop of cuts and the onslaught on the welfare state, it would be invidious for an organisation, which seeks to represent the needs of disabled people, to help lend respectability to the Government’s policies by sitting around the table for discussions with Ministers.

Effective?

Internal Disability Alliance memo, July 1983, Peter Townsend Collection, University of Essex.

• Gareth Millward• www.vahs.org.uk (for the 40 minute version)

• gazmillward@hotmail.com• history.lshtm.ac.uk

Thanks!