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

Centre for History in Public Health. Disability and Voluntarism, 1965-95 – An effective force in policy making?. Gareth Millward – 3 rd Year PhD (supervisor Dr Martin Gorsky ) London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Project funded by the Wellcome Trust. Improving health worldwide.

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

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  1. Centre for History in Public Health 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 Medicine Project funded by the Wellcome Trust Improving health worldwide www.lshtm.ac.uk

  2. A Simplified Time Line 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 DIG Rights Now! DA CCD RADAR BCRD UPIAS BCODP Spastics Society SCOPE Disabled Persons Act Disabled Persons (SCaR) Act Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1944 CS & Disabled Persons Act Disability Discrimination Act International Year of Disabled People OPCS Survey Civil Rights Bills SJC CORAD Disability Working and Living Allowances Personal Capacity Assessments New invalidity benefits

  3. 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

  4. Effective? • Whiggish interpretation – “progress” is made • Excellent manipulation of “problem” and “politics” • Poor at influencing “solution” The Times, 15th November 1971, p. 1.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. Effective? 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. 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.

  8. 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

  9. Effective?

  10. Effective?

  11. 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.

  12. Thanks! • Gareth Millward • www.vahs.org.uk(for the 40 minute version) • gazmillward@hotmail.com • history.lshtm.ac.uk

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