natalyad: (Default)
A few days ago a sudden announcement by Mark Harper minister for Disabled People appeared. It outlined some changes to Access to Work (AtW) the government scheme to assess and fund some of disabled people's support needs in the workplace in order to include us fully in society.

£1 into AtW = £1.48 out to economy
Before I criticise this latest cut to AtW - it is important to keep in mind that in 2005 government research showed that for every £1 spent on AtW that the treasury found the economy benefited by £1.48 due to disabled people being able to contribute to tax compared to having to claim unemployment benefits and other people being employed to work for and with disabled employees.

The two main concerns I have are:
1) The £40,800 cap on AtW awards per year.
2) The linking of eligibility to AtW for self-employed people to Universal Credit rules.

The cap, who it affects and why
The cap will affect less than 1% of AtW users who need the kind of support which cannot currently be entirely or reliably provided by technology to do their work to a high standard like a non-disabled person.

This is likely to be some Deaf/HOH people needing high amounts of "communication support" including:
  • British Sign Language (BSL)/English interpreters,
  • Speech to Text Reporters (STTRs),
  • Lipspeakers,
  • Electronic Notetakers
    (Unless specified "communication support" in this post means any or all of these).

    This will also affect disabled people with severe or multiple impairments who
    may require a variety of solutions which cost-wise add up to more than the cap.. Deafblind people for example might need communication support AND other support such as travel.

    Communication support - why is it so expensive?
    It isn't just anyone who can provide high quality communication support for deaf, HOH and deafblind people. Training to become a communication support professional takes 5-10 years with them having to meet high language and accuracy standards. Suggestions in the announcement that the government will implement translation services frameworks are worrying when various professional communication support workers' groups believe the standards will be forgotten in order to cut costs.

    I personally have had cheaper services provided to me instead of STTR. BSL users often get fobbed off with people who have no BSL/English interpreting qualifications and sometimes almost no signing skills. Deaf people are often ignored or dismissed when we try to explain that the "professional" that has been booked for us is not appropriate. It is vital that the quality of our professionals are not dumbed down.

    There are fewer than 25 STTR operators and 25 lipspeakers in the UK so they often have to travel and stay overnight in hotel accommodation to work for their clients. Deaf BSL users in rural areas may live some distance from their nearest BSL/English interpreters. These factors both add to the cost. It is really only people living in London who don't regularly have travel as an issue. I'm in Birmingham and my nearest STTR ops and Electronic notetaker is 90-120 mins away.

    It's 2015 can't Communication Support work remotely over the internet
    There is also a fear that many deaf people will be pushed to use cheaper remote services. There is a place for video relay for BSL or remote STTR and electronic notetaking but they are only appropriate for some situations and quality can be reduced. I doubt it is even possible to do lipspeaking or hands on signing remotely.

    Remote BSL/English and STTR also have issues of managing the technology at the user's end:
  • Getting high quality audio from the speaker to the communication professional via fast/reliable Internet connection.
  • A way of viewing the sign or captions that are produced.

    Sounds simple? Despite being a techie I haven't yet worked out how to do remote STTR reliably!

    Remote service provision also has latency issues, ESPECIALLY when using cellular Internet connections:
  • Time for audio from speaker to reach communication professional
  • Time for video or captions to reach the deaf person

    An extra second or two doesn't seem like much, but it makes a huge difference to the intelligibility and ability to follow the speech in real-time.

    I can't comment heavily on remote BSL services but signing friends say they are much less good and they should be listened to!

    Deaf people need to be able to use their strongest communication method
    I am also worried that as STTR is more expensive per hour than BSL that in future people will be pushed to use BSL even if sign is not their strongest language. Or when it seems more convenient to use text methods that BSL users will be expected to use them instead of BSL.

    Can't you just get the hearing folk to type?
    I also know of deaf people pushed to use a "manual typing system" which requires colleagues or clients to type to them. Most deaf people can and will use typing or writing at times to overcome hearing people's inability to communicate in BSL or with clear lip patterns, but it's low quality communication and is not appropriate for anything other than basic conversations!

    Most people speak at around 200 words per minute but even professional typists can only type at around 50 words per minute. In my experience most hearing people type REALLY slowly which is boring! BSL is an entirely different language from English, which is why we have BSL/English interpreters.

    Self employed - you'd better not be part time, or have a low income if you want Access to Work!
    The linking of self-employment Access to Work funding with Universal Credit sounds good in words alone, but this becomes linked to minimum hourly earnings and minimum number of hours worked in the self-employment. I don't really know much about this but Alison writing as @deaf on twitter and Facebook has written more about this and I've tried to do a bit of reading myself but honestly got lost in Jobcentre Bureaucratese.

    It seems that Universal Credit has a number of issues which Johny Void outlines. If you're not earning enough in your self-employment you will be deemed to not be working enough hours and forced to deal with jobcentre hideous disablism and become ineligible for Access to Work. I also don't know how this is going to work for disabled people who have part-time businesses and used to be able to get AtW to assist them in equality for those.

    Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment
    Some deaf and disabled people will get Personal Independence Payment so may be OK with AtW and eligibility but others such as those who are just deaf often can't get Personal Independence Payment so will have to work more hours to get the same eligibility... How is that fair?

    Sacrifice the few for the many - apparently
    The narrative around this 1% is that the needs of the few are being sacrificed to free up money for "mental health interventions" and the "many" rather than more money being put into services to focus on mental health support systems.

    ETA: I don't know if those affected by the Universal Credit eligibility rules means that those affected is higher than 1%. I suspect it is. I will try and find data/%.

    This narrative relies on people thinking £40,800 is a lot of money and that it's not unreasonable to have a hard limit or only support those working 'full time'... I think this is also a focus on people whose support needs can be resolved with one-off interventions and a narrative that anyone who needs ongoing support is "too demanding" "too needy" "too expensive" and "can no longer be afforded". This was already covered in the Snowdon Trust's 2013 A shared view survey report about Disabled Students' Allowances caps which have very similar issues to the AtW ones.

    This announcement changes Access to Work from principled equality to a cost-prioritised system where equality is conditional. There were legitimate requests for an arbitration panel to cover those people with high-cost awards as there might be very good reasons such as multiple-impairments, or high demand jobs like being the leader of an organisation so having long hours and high costs but this seems to have been ignored. There is no right of appeal from Access to Work as it's not a right or entitlement but reframed as a "benefit" which is claimed by shirkers and scroungers!

    As a deaf and disabled person I am SICK of being told: "you are too expensive"!

    I'm not directly affected now/yet, because I only need occasional STTR at the moment but I am already feeling scared to push my career in directions of my purported-strengths because I fear I won't be able to manage and sustain the communication support that I will need to perform to a high standard and not become ill from audio-overload. It would only take 12 hours a week of remote-STTR or 6 in-person STTR for me to max that cap.

    And don't believe for a second most employers can afford, or are willing to pick up the remaining costs - cos they won't. Employers already discriminate in recruitment of disabled people and this will worsen. Where a disabled person is employed they will be told they can't have the support, have to use cheaper/inferior alternatives and not have the support they need to perform to their best ability. Disabled students sometimes have to use cheaper/inferior alternatives now due to DSA caps. AtW caps will further limit deaf and disabled people's ability to develop and progress within the workplace!

    I have written to my MP this evening to ask him to challenge the government about this and at least bring back in an arbitration panel for people who feel the decision is unfair but I honestly don't know what else I can do other than ask others to write to their MPs and the DWP.

    Do we need to ask for an impact assessment here? Can we challenge this legally? Judicial review somehow?

    Other reactions to the Access to Work cuts in no particular order
    British Deaf Association (BDA) (BSL + English): https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=868566606538995

    Alison Bryan (English): http://www.twitter.com/deaf

    National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS) (English): http://www.ndcs.org.uk/for_the_media/press_releases/statement_in_4.html

    Disability News Service (English): http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/access-to-work-plans-for-new-cap-on-awards-is-huge-concern/

    Stop Changes to Access to Work (English): https://stopchanges2atw.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/stop-changes-to-access-to-work-response-to-ministerial-statement/

    Neil Crowther (English): https://makingrightsmakesense.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/a-cap-on-talent/
  • natalyad: (Default)
    Just catching up with the Internet this evening and I see this Limping Chicken article We were just looking at how to possibly catch you our, or restrict you. Access to Work Adviser talks to BBC News

    I see a number of deaf and disabled people saying "My advisor didn't know or understand very basic things about my disability or impairment needs". I've experienced that myself, with my one-time named adviser demonstrating that she didn't know the difference between a textphone/minicom and palantypy/STTR.

    What if this "ignorance" or lack of knowledge isn't actually genuine?

    If if this "ignorance" is a way of stonewalling applicants.

    It wouldn't be the first time I've seen claimed-ignorance used as a way of delaying or refusing to make adjustments for deaf and disabled people.

    Think about it. It's very clever for at least two reasons:
  • The wider non deaf and disabled world doesn't know much either, so they may be inclined to sympathise with the "lack of knowledge" and reinforce that paradigm of "It's unreasonable to expect an adviser to know everything about every disability".
  • It adds another hurdle or barrier to the process, every barrier reduces the number of people able to overcome it. That barrier puts the onus back on US as deaf and disabled people to educate, explain and justify ourselves and our unreasonable requests to them.

    Even when I have very carefully and politely educated and explained with all the power that my privilege of education, experience, nature of my job and sheer stubbornness give me; the access to work advisers have still stonewalled me in other ways.

    It's very similar to the "disablist hatecrime barge", a very specific *shove* with the shoulder which when the perpetrator is challenged is excused as "an accident". It's not accidental, it's very very obviously not accidental, it's very specific and very intentional and extremely insidious because the disabled person who has been assaulted will often not be believed "Oh, they said it was an accident" "they didn't mean it"...

    By FOIing the DWP asking for training materials, we allow them to distract us with the idea that more or better training might fix this problem. But if the issue is that they are directed to evade and stonewall us then no amount of 'training' and "consultation" will make any difference to a systematically and institutionally disablist system.
  • natalyad: (Default)

    Context for this blogpost


    I've been hearing a lot about increased problems with Access to Work (AtW) over the past 12-18 months and thought I'd collate some information all in one post so I can point people at it - this post will be a work in progress.

    Access to Work is the government's system for providing assessment and funding for support for disabled and deaf employees in the UK. The government likes to talk about things in pure economic terms but will ignore their own figures which show in 2005 that for every £1 spent on AtW, the wider 'economy' benefitted by £1.48. The primary source for this is nearly impossible to find other than cited as DWP 2005 but it was cited by Liz Sayce in her widely cited Getting in, staying in, and getting on report colloquially known as "The Sayce Report".

    If you want to help


    If you want to do something to help, even if you are not an AtW user or your AtW is working well for you please consider joining Srtop Changes to Access to Work and watching the video of Jenny Sealey's rally speech in BSL with English subtitles.

    Access to Work has never embedded true accessibility by design


    Access to Work has never been the most accessible or user friendly system. Administered by the Jobcentre Plus (JCP) within the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) it feel oh so very much like the hassle of trying to claim social security benefits such as job seekers allowance (JSA). I should know, I've claimed both.

    Examples include
  • AtW not communicating accessibly,
  • Repeatably asking deaf people to telephone them even if AtW is needed to access deaf-suitable-telephony;
  • sending print letters to blind and partially sighted people even if they don't (yet) have technology to access them.

    These things matter because they expose the lack of inclusion and respect for deaf and disabled people at the heart of the organisation. Processes are more important than access!

    Recently the DWP has made large numbers of the AtW caseworkers redundant and closed down contact centres. This means that instead of a named advisor, we now have a nameless contact centre so can't even 'train someone up' to our communication/access needs, but have to start afresh every time which is time consuming and stressful.

    AtW users have not been officially informed of changes such as redundancy of case workers or changes in "the process", we only find things out when postal addresses fall out of use (or we check the gov.uk website and see things have changed), telephone numbers and email addresses don't work or our support workers are not paid. This is made harder by the fact that even advisers who are still in their jobs don't answer their phone, return calls or respond to emails.

    Collating experiences


    I'm going to collate people's personal experiences of Access to Work in this post and write a separate post of my own about my experiences of this potentially brilliant but institutionally disablist support system.

    I'll put things under categories of D/deaf and disabled separately as D/deaf people are being disproportionately affected as a single-impairment group due to the high cost of communication support workers.

    I am happy to receive links to sensible resources and people's experiences in English or BSL in comments, to @natalyadell or to natalyadell at gmail dot com and I'll upload them when I can.

    Deaf/deaf and HOH people's AtW experiences


  • Ian Noon - Parliamentary Campaigns Manager at National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS) -
    Access to Work difficulties via Limping Chicken - February 2014


  • William Mager - Series Producer, See Hear
    Will changes to disability work grants affect deaf people the most? article in BBC Ouch magazine - October 2014.


  • Jenny Sealey MBE - Artistic Director at Graeae a UK disability led theatre company and co-artistic director of London 2012's paralympic opening ceremony.
    Our mission could be in jeopardy.” Graeae’s Jenny Sealey on impact of Access to Work problems on theatre company. Limping Chicken article outlining the issues impacting deaf and disabled people in Graeae and potential impact on small disability-led organisations.


  • People with other impairments


  • Jess Thom - CoFounder of Touretteshero comedienne and children's worker.
    Access Impossible article about her recent difficulties with Access to Work - Oct 2014.


  • Howard Hardiman - Freelance artist, author, illustrator who has a progressive physical impairment.
    The trouble with not giving up blogpost about his recent experiences with AtW

  • Robin - Part-time self employed printmaker
    Access to Work - the government's in charge of another car crash blogpost about his experiences of AtW and discussion around rhetoric and structure of the system


  • Links, campaign groups and general information about AtW


    Gov UK Access to Work site

    Disability Rights UK factsheet F27 on Access to Work

    Action on Hearing Loss webpages about Access to Work for employees and employers

    Deaf ATW a site set up by an interpreter to support people in challenging (poor) AtW decisions. Contains BSL video information about some issues. Outlines a number of issues mostly affecting deaf people in AtW terms.

    See Hear Access to Work special episode available until ~20th November.

    National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS) submissions to the Department of Work and Pensions Select Committee inquiry [PDF].

    Stop Changes to Access to Work Campaign latest update and more information at Stop Changes to Access to Work main website.

    News articles about Access to Work



    OCT 2014
    Access to Work crisis: Minister apologises for bungled reforms Disability News Service.

    Access to Work crisis: Another Deaf leader speaks out Disabiity News Service.

    Access to Work crisis: Minister is ‘full of hot air’ Disability News Service.

    UK Council on Deafness welcomes Minister’s commitment to improve Access to Work

    Work and Pensions Committee Oral evidence from Select Committee on 29th Oct 2014
    natalyad: (Default)
    How to mug a deaf person. A video produced by someone I know, Caroline O'Neill and written by a Ben Green is up for the British Comedy Awards and seeking votes at http://www.comedy.co.uk/bca/video/163/. Another similar comedy sketch is Deaf Mugger by the same writer Ben and directed by William Mager at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us7nAFSfo1U. I think Ben has a bit of a mugger thing going on. In both videos the sign and speech is subtitled beautifully!

    On one of the deaf places I sometimes hang out someone said she didn't like How to mug a deaf person because it made the interpreter the butt of the joke.

    I thought How to Mug a Deaf person was pretty funny, using the vehicle of interpreter having to relay what has been spoken to the deaf person (or around them) or signed by the deaf person faithfully because their professional code. In reality the code is at http://www.nrcpd.org.uk/page.php?content=30 and both interpreters would be able to refuse in these cases, but this is comedy, and in these sketches the interpreters are following a simplistic "must interpret all" even if it means they are aiding and abetting a crime or have to tell a mugger they're carrying lots of cash...

    It's a bit of a 'what if' and not entirely unrealistic. In the early naughties the American 711 relay services were being heavily used by overseas scammers using the relay operators to relay scams . Newspaper reporting including MSNBC had interviews with relay operators saying they felt like criminals being required to relay threats and obviously unlawful content.

    USA organisations are not permitted to refuse to take relay calls, but because of this high scam load many were doing so because more than 80% of calls were scams. This was causing harm to American deaf and deafblind people so eventually the telephony regulators instigated systems to make relay providers verify the identity of callers and ensure they are in the USA. UK law is similar, making it unlawful to hang up on TextRelay which I discuss in my blogpost about receiving relay calls

    As well as issues around legality, I think these comedy videos highlight humanity. The humanity of "support workers" "communication professionals" who are theoretically supposed to be invisible when acting for deaf and disabled people, but in reality cannot become unpersons, because they are human, they exist with characteristics such as age, race, gender.

    In the UK court system it is not currently legal to take a sign language interpreter or other support worker into the juror's deliberation room because legally the interpreter would count as a 13th person and breach the "sanctity" of the deliberation space. This is being challenged by UK deaf people and a mock trial is being carried out to see if having a deaf jurer and interpreter impacts deliberations.

    Research such as Women-only services: making the case by The Women's Resource Centre in the UK and the UK Women's National Commission's Findings from the WNC survey on women-only services consistently shows that the presence of men in some spaces can make them less safe for women. It is common practice in women's centres and organisations to have areas where men are not normally permitted during opening hours. It is easier to find research on women, so I am going to extrapolate the same principle for other X only spaces.

    Some time ago some friends and had an exploratory debate about the nature of a disabled or deaf person needing to take a support worker into what I call "X only spaces" so women only or Black, Minority Ethnic (BME) only people spaces where the support worker did not meet the required characteristic.

    I've seen various disability activists argue that the disabled person's access rights override the requirement of a support worker to have the appropriate X characteristic for X only spaces. I'm not sure I agree, cos intersectionality happens and sometimes needs clash.

    The argument that a support worker is like a wheelchair or even a guide dog doesn't work. A support worker IS a human being. It isn't about their professionalism, it's about the fact of their personhood that they could in themselves be a threat to other people in that X-only space - making it potentially unsafe or unwelcoming for many other people. So it pits a disabled person's right to support over other people's right to safety.

    This wasn't just a hypothetical exercise, I've organised events where a disabled person who had another X characteristic has attended with a support worker and would be absolutely welcome and entitled to go into the X only spaces. But their support worker might not be.

    Could we be honest about our policy, encourage people bringing a support worker to communicate with organisers in advance, so if their support worker wasn't appropriate for X-only spaces that we could look at alternative options? Some people don't need their support worker all the time, could the support worker help assist the disabled person as needed then wait nearby ready to be called if needed? Could we split a X-only session in half, one with non-X support worker and one without - giving other attenders honest information about what the space would be? Could we (with advance notice) as an organisation agree to pay for/towards hiring a support worker or person who could provide support for the duration of the X-only session? Much depends on what the nature of the support is, or how much notice we had.

    There isn't necessarily an answer which would keep everyone happy. But it was useful to think this stuff through, talking to women, trans people and people of colour about how they would honestly feel about sanctity of their X-only spaces.

    To me, beyond the comedy, the deaf mugger sketches really throw that personhood of a support worker in the viewer's face, making us uncomfortable, or laughing at the ludicrousness of it, but at the same time, maybe making us think and remember that while we can demand high standards, it's difficult and a bad path to go down trying to dehumanise anyone, even a professional "non person" in some situations.
    natalyad: (Default)
    For more information about the DSA changes see my blogpost on it at http://natalyad.dreamwidth.org/10553.html

    Jump to giving feedback about your DSA experiences
    Jump to info about writing to your MP and suggested content
    Jump to press releases from disability, specific learning difficulties (SpLD) and higher education organisations.
    Jump to links to blogposts and social media discussions about the DSA changes
     

    Petition to stop DSA changes


    e-gov petition to stop cuts to DSA at http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/63748

    Please propagate this and ask your friends, facebook, twitter and other social media people to sign this.

     

    Feed back to me (or another disability adviser) about your DSA experiences


    update to how you can give feedback
    You can also give your DSA feedback at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/143wrLGqbIaiVhKQD5yS24uuVltQFyaTyynEfx9i67cY/viewform which has been set up by a disability adviser and will be sent to student support organisations collating information for challenging these cuts.


    We are looking for feedback from past and present students about how DSA helped them remain on their course, function better, overcome impact of impairment on study to feed back to the government en-masse.

    A few lines plus permission to provide basic course info e.g. postgrad maths, undergraduate social sciences and basic impairment info e.g. dyslexic student, student with fatigue from health condition, partially-sighted student etc would be all it takes.

    Feedback from all over England and Wales will be collated and either used verbatim with the government as qualitative feedback or used to extract common experiences for feedback.

    If you have a current disability adviser it is probably best to send the feedback to them, but if you don't, you can send feedback to me on natalya dot dell at gmail dot com. I won't share your personal details with anyone else.


     

    Write to your MP


    You can use the Write To Them service to find, write and send message to your MP.

    If you have ever received DSA you can include your experiences of how DSA enabled you to remain in education, reduced inequality, helped improve your grades, improved your strategies etc.

    If you haven't received DSA you can say you believe in DSA as a way of supporting disabled students in higher education.

    What sorts of things can I include in my letter

    If your letter is short because you are low on energy/time, especially because you are disabled, say so.

  • Relate your content to something like "Ministerial Statement made by Rt Hon David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science; Department for Business Innovation and Skills (07/04/14) at https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/higher-education-student-support-changes-to-disabled-students-allowances-dsa".

  • Explain DSA briefly Disabled Students' Allowances (DSA) are non-means tested grants provided to pay for the additional academic-related costs faced by a disabled student compared to a non-disabled student at higher education. This can include computer hardware and software, adapted furniture, support workers such as note-takers, sign language interpreters, practical assistants for lab/library/other.

  • Provide some details about what DSA you got (if applicable) and why it specifically helped you remain in university and do better on your course than doing without would have been.


  • Link to any of the points I made about cuts in my summary of DSA cuts blogpost if any of those would have specifically affected you.



  • I don't think letters need to be long, in fact shorter the better. The more unique letters MPs get the more they're likely to challenge this change and join in any discussions about it.

     

    DSA changes in social media



    Twitter hashtags which are covering DSA include #ProtectDSA #WithoutDSAIcouldntstudy and #DSA.


    Spooneydoc's Roll with the Punches DSA blogpost at http://loopys-rollingwiththepunches.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/vital-disabled-student-support-to-be.html

    Where's the benefit blogpost about DSA cuts at http://wheresthebenefit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/disabled-students-allowance-targeted.html

     

    Press releases challenging the DSA changes


    I will add press releases as I find them:

    National Association of Disability Practitioners (NADP)
    This is the grass-roots organisation that accredits, supports and encourages networking professionals who work to support disabled students in HE.

    NADP's Press Release is linked from http://nadp-uk.org/news/268/19/NADP-Press-Release---call-to-protect-support-for-disabled-students/d,News/ .

    Association of Dyslexia Specialists in Higher Education (ADSHE)
    ADSHE link together Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD) tutors, advisers, assessors and more to specifically cover SpLDs like dyslexia, dyspraxia, AD(H)D, dyscalculia and dysgraphia etc..

    ADSHE have made a press release, temporarily downloadable from http://tinyurl.com/ADSHEBISresponse until it is on their website.

    Professional Association of Teachers of Students with Specific Learning Difficulties (PATOSS)
    PATOSS is a professional membership organisation for people who provide specialist tuition and support for people with dyslexia and other specific learning difficulties.

    PATOSS's press release is at https://www.patoss-dyslexia.org/News/#question105654178711

    AMOSSHE The Student Services Organisation
    AMOSSHE is a wider 'student services' organisation encouraging development and sharing of good practice in Higher Education.

    AMOSSHE's Press Release can be found at http://www.amosshe.org.uk/news/AMOSSHE_response_to_proposed_DSA_changes


    National Union of Students (NUS)
    NUS which is a collection of 600+ students' unions covering 95% of HE and FE institutions in the UK.

    NUS's Press Release can be found at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/nus-blasts-david-willetts-over-changes-to-disabled-students-support/2012501.article

    British Assistive Technology Assocation (BATA)
    Campaigning and advice group for users of assistive technology

    BATA's press release can be found at http://bataonline.org/news-events/grant-cuts-press-release

    DNA (Diversity and Ability)
    DNA are a disabled and dyslexic people led social enterprise assistive technology company.

    DNA's DSA press release is at https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByhUpsQtkQmEQzdWSS1DV1dyUXV3NWR1dHhzcWtYU0lPeWFj/edit?pli=1
    natalyad: (Default)

    Why I sued HMRC for disability discrimination and accepted a settlement


    I sued because nothing else worked.

    Action on Hearing loss claim there are nearly 10 million people with a hearing loss in the UK; 800,000 of them have a severe or profound loss like mine. Lots of deaf people and those with other impairments such as mental illnesses and autism struggle with telephony. Yet HMRC and other large organisations have not yet got with the 21st century to provide viable and more accessible alternatives.

    HMRC are a government organisation who deserve every bit of their reputation as bureaucratic bullies as they clearly demonstrated right to the end of my wrangles with them. They are the most disablist and rude organisation I have ever dealt with and I hope never to have to communicate with them again!

    I hope publishing the outline of my case encourages other deaf and disabled people being discriminated against by HMRC or similar governmental/bureaucratic organisation to seek legal advice from Unity Law like I did or with another reputable law firm.

    Telephony and HMRC


    The problem started with HMRC's regular voice Working Tax Credits (WTC) advice phonelines being overloaded in 2008 - especially during out-of-work hours - the only times I had access to my TextPhone. (My blog entry on why telephony is difficult for me.

    HMRC's phonelines have never been reliable or easy to get through to. This has been happening for years and is supported by HMRC's own research.
    Some phonelines even have hold music which interferes with TextRelay by making my Minicom think it is receiving modem tone instructions as per the printout below.



    Textphone users using TextRelay are more impacted by being unable to connect a call as it takes a lot longer for our calls to connect in the first place so we cannot quickly redial. I also found that once connected to HMRC lines I was "accidentally disconnected" an awful lot when being transferred, not something hearing people seem to experience.

    HMRC's direct textphone lines (i.e textphone to textphone) are even worse! I don't think I ever got one to work in the past six years. HMRC now blatantly offer less favourable service to direct-textphone users by not answering their main working tax credits textphone line when they do answer their voice line equivalent as shown on the clickable screengrab of their website below.



    I don't take incoming calls because most people and organisations don't use the 18002 dialing prefix properly. I also don't have anyone who can relay phonecalls for me reliably and feel that as a legally competent adult that I shouldn't need anyone to do this for me. I repeatedly told HMRC both of these things and that in the 21st century they should have secure webchat and email style systems but was told this wasn't possible for security reasons. There was no way for me to say that I'd rather take the "security risk" than be constantly discriminated against.

    Extra disability issues


    To make things even more complicated, in 2009 one of my other arm impairments suddenly worsened so I went from being able to type as much as I liked on suitable keyboards to having very variable typing ability and finding my Minicom's keyboard was not possible to type on for an HMRC length call.

    HMRC and written correspondence


    My very first letter to HMRC written after weeks of being unable to get through to by textphone for advice didn't contain the correct incantation of "HMRC's magic jargon words" so HMRC did not apply one of their own rules "4 week overrun" to my case.

    By the time I knew that I needed to use magic words I had missed a very tight HMRC deadline which HMRC refused to waive. Over 4 years I
  • Requested review
  • Disputed
  • Appealed
  • Requested notional payments
  • Complained
  • Requested that HMRC completed a Discrimination and other prohibited conduct form

    in an attempt to get HMRC to recognise their mistake. Some of them I tried multiple times. HMRC have no system for "We got it wrong with the original information".

    Despite me telling HMRC that I struggle with some kinds of language because of a language impairment they also repeatedly refused to simplify or clarify the content or wording of their letters.

    Most of my letters explained why telephones are inaccessible to me and that I don't have a third-party to handle my calls but this didn't stop HMRC repeatedly responding by telling me to phone them or for me to get a third party to do so.

    HMRC Appointments needed telephony to access


    I even tried to get a face to face appointment with HMRC, hoping that if I could speak to a real person and explain my case that they would stop stonewalling me with bureaucratese.

    My first appointment request in writing, giving my availability and requesting Speech to Text Reporting STTR/palantypy (aka CART and VSTT) was treated as an appeal by the case officer who wrote back to me saying said appeal had failed and completely ignored my appointment request.

    My second appointment attempt involved me phoning HMRC to tell them I needed an appointment with STTR/Palantypy support and was available any Wednesday. I ended up having to explain to the advisor that I couldn't take incoming calls and didn't have a third party who could answer a call over the next two days.

    Eventually the advisor spoke to a manager and agreed to send a letter which took three weeks to arrive. The letter asked if I wanted a signer (NRCPD registered registered (RSLI) British Sign Language / English interpreter) so the information about STTR/palantypy had been lost - again. I tried to fax my reply requesting STTR/palantypy to HMRC but their fax machine didn't work so I had to post it - which caused further delay as I was unwell at the time.

    HMRC cancelled my appointment (and didn't tell me)


    I turned up to my appointment and reported to the reception desk where the staff couldn't find my name on any lists. It turns out someone had tried to email me (I think it never left HMRC's servers) and I was given a printout of an email:
    We are in the process of trying to book a Pala Typist [sic] instead of a signer as you requested. We will need to rearrange your appointment for an alternative date. As soon as it can be arranged we will confirm the date and time and provide you with directions.

    When checking my email on my phone to prove that I had never received this email I got reprimanded by staff because there were signs up banning people from using their phones.

    As well as wasting my time - the whole experience was stressful and intimidating despite the staff being polite and having good deaf awareness.

    HMRC then refused me a replacement appointment


    After some more slow postal correspondence trying to set up a replacement appointment, where I yet again had to repeatedly tell HMRC my availability and that I needed STTR/palantypy not a signer (sign language interpreter), HMRC sent me a letter refusing me an appointment entirely.

    HMRC continue to demand the money


    In 2012 I got various letters threatening me with debt collectors and court if I didn't repay the alleged overpayment. I wrote back telling them that I wasn't paying and that I would be happy to explain to a court how hard I had worked to communicate and how inaccessible HMRC were...

    HMRC then told me they would change my tax code to extract the money. This is very clever as it's not possible to legally challenge that. When I tried to phone HMRC to object as per instructions in the letter HMRC's phoneline hold music interfered with my Minicom 6000P causing it to continually spew nonsense before disconnecting after about 20 minutes of waiting to connect to an adviser.

    Legal support from Unity Law


    At this point I did what I should have done in 2011. I sought legal advice from Unity Law a specialist firm of disability discrimination solicitors. Unity's staff were fantastic, the lawyers did everything by email and postal letters, they never asked me to phone them, after a communication misunderstanding they followed my advice on communicating more clearly with me and always answered any questions that I had.

    Unity started out asking me to write to HMRC to request an appointment again telling HMRC that I could not use the telephone. HMRC took over seven weeks to reply telling me that I had to telephone their enquiry centre for an appointment.

    My lawyer decided this constituted
  • Indirect discrimination,
  • Discrimination Arising from Disability
  • Failure to make reasonable adjustments.

    My case was taken on a Conditional Fee Agreement (no win, no fee) as we had a higher than 50% chance of success - an option which would be less possible for me today due to changes in the law about legal cases.

    I had to find every letter I had sent or received from HMRC, scan them, log them and email them to my lawyer who used them to start drafting my case against HMRC and sought advice from a barrister. I also requested my personal records "Subject Access Request" from HMRC under the Data Protection Act and got some interesting screenshots of HMRC advisers notes which showed serious misunderstandings about disability rights and the law which I sent to my lawyer.

    My lawyer then drafted A letter of claim which was basically a time-line of problematic events, quotations of large sections of the law, request for HMRC to compensate me, fix the problems and cover my legal costs.

    For a summary timeline of my dealing with Unity go to my blog entry on it.

    HMRC's initial responses


    Upon receipt of our first pre-action letter HMRC requested and we granted an extension for them to investigate.

    HMRC's first response was sent to me instead of my lawyer (in breach of the solicitor's code of practice) and while it finally acknowledged HMRC had made a mistake about the overpayment and was arranging repayment with a mere £25 "compensation" for inconvenience it suggested I could use a third-party for phones; didn't acknowledge the disability discrimination complaints and refused to pay my legal fees.

    My lawyer and I were not impressed, so she drafted up another legal letter telling HMRC that they needed to answer the disability discrimination claims; telling me to use a third-party was legally inappropriate (It's HMRC's duty to make reasonable adjustments not mine) and that if we didn't receive a suitable reply we would proceed to court-action.

    HMRC assigned a new lawyer at their end and requested a further 28 days to respond and proof that I was legally disabled. I felt HMRC had wasted the time they had already had in not taking me seriously and fobbing me off but my lawyer advised that we should allow it and suggested she suggested an initial settlement offer, which I agreed to.

    HMRC agree to settle


  • HMRC offered me £7,500 which was 3/4 the compensation settlement amount we asked for taking into account of the stress that this matter has caused [personal profile] natalyad

    I did my research and found the compensation amount I was offered was higher than the few disability discrimination payouts I've been able to find online:
  • Mark Daniels, a wheelchair user being refused entry to a club and taunted by staff
  • David Allen, a wheelchair user being refused accessible access to his bank
  • Doug Paulley, a wheelchair user being refused access to a bus because a buggy user refused to move from the wheelchair space.
    the few recorded court outcomes I could find for non-employment disability discrimination.

  • HMRC denied disability discrimination despite shortcomings
    HMRC accept that there have been occasions where they have fallen short of the standards [personal profile] natalyad was entitled to expect from them.

    However they do not accept that those shortcomings amount to having a provision, criteria or practice (PCP) which creates a substantial disadvantage to [personal profile] natalyad and which amounts to less favourable treatment arising from her disability amounting to direct discrimination.

    We do not accept that we are in breach of obligations under the Equality Act 2010 (or otherwise) but we do accept that we could and should have done things better and apologise for these shortcomings.


  • HMRC tried to insinuate that my telephony experiences were untrue
    The allegation implies that textphone lines are always unanswered but the result of our own "mystery shopping" (part of our published research) was that the mystery shoppers were able to get a response. However we accept that persistence through repeated calls and waits may be needed to get through.

    We are aware our textphone service does not always meet the standards we desire

    The mystery shopping was done over two weeks in March 2012 and the report is actually pretty damning and well worth reading!

  • HMRC admitted that they don't answer "answerable" textphone lines when callcentres are busy
    Textphone technology is different to ordinary telephone and as a result it is not integrated into the contract centre IT architecture.

    This means that these phones cannot ordinarily be answered by advisors working to answer voice calls and as our contact centres are often under great pressure we accept that there are times when the textphone service suffers.

    This is basically admitting that textphone calls are likely not to be answered when the callcentres are busy - which is quite often!

    I'm both happy and unhappy with the outcome


    I am unhappy that HMRC continue to maintain a systematically and institutionally disablist position of failing to recognise that my issues arose and were perpetuated due to poor accessibility of their systems.

    It was never about the money, nothing compensates me for the six years of stress, worry, fury and frustration at being constantly stonewalled by jargonistic bureaucracy. Nevermind the hours spent fighting HMRC and just doing the legal case - it's probably still a pathetic hourly rate! However I shall enjoy spending the compensation and saying "HMRC paid for that!".

    I am unhappy that HMRC still consider it acceptable to insist on telephony being the primary contact method and continue to tell deaf people to get "third party assistance" when this disables us!

    When I expressed concern at "nothing changing" if I have the misfortune to have to deal with HMRC again my lawyer said that I should contact Unity immediately if HMRC discriminates against me in future.

    What next for deaf people and HMRC


    Organisations such as Pardon, UK Council of Deaf people (UKCoD) and so on have been involved in consultations with HMRC at a high level feeding back information from people discussing difficulties online.

    At around the time my settlement letter was received I discovered HMRC now offer an online appointment booker which has a variety of communication support options on it.

    We need to stand up for ourselves, insist on appropriate communication channels and support. If HMRC and other agencies discriminate against us, we need to complain and if necessary seek legal advice or request that representative bodies such as Action on Hearing Loss raise concerns at a high level.
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