Gareth Millward 3 rd Year PhD supervisor Dr Martin Gorsky London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Project funded by the Wellcome Trust Centre for History in Public Health Improving health ID: 536306
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Slide1
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.ukSlide2
DIG
RADAR
CCD
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
1995
1990
1985
1980
1975
1970
A Simplified Time LineSlide3
The social model
Disability is a social issueImpairment only becomes disability because society makes it soA fair society would allow impaired people the same chances to live as autonomously as non-impaired peopleSlide4
Effective?
Whiggish interpretation – “progress” is madeExcellent manipulation of “problem” and “politics”Poor at influencing “solution”
The Times, 15th November 1971, p. 1.Slide5
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.Slide6
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.Slide7
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.Slide8
Outcome Examples
DDA employment sections did not apply to businesses employing fewer than 20 peopleNew capacity tests looked at medically ascertainable functional limitations – not disease nomenclatureBenefits paid more equally based on need – but still at levels far too low to alleviate povertySlide9
Effective?Slide10
Effective?Slide11
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.Slide12
Gareth Millwardwww.vahs.org.uk
(for the 40 minute version)gazmillward@hotmail.comhistory.lshtm.ac.uk
Thanks!