The government has launched a Green Paper on Work, health and disability, and wants to know how it can do a better job. The Green Paper can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/work-health-and-disability-improving-lives
Some of the suggestions in the Green Paper have been called “unethical”, “impractical” and “disgraceful” by disability campaigners across the country and the world.
So we need your help. If the current system is not working, and the ideas in the Green Paper are bad ideas, then we need to come up with something better.
The Disability United community (that’s you lot reading this right now) know more about disability put together than any government minister or MP could ever hope to learn.
We’re going to put together a response to the Green Paper, and if all of us put our heads together we could give the government an idea that really works.
On our own, as individuals, it can be hard to get our point of view listened to. So by working together, we hope to make your voice louder. Together we can create real change, and this Green Paper is a great opportunity to do this.
Send your thoughts to editor@disabilityunited.co.uk or get in touch on social media, and we’ll collect your ideas in one big document, tie it up with a bow, and send it to the Department for Work and Pensions, asking for a reply.
We can put your name, or just your idea. You can send us stories, facts and figures, cunning plans, light-bulb moments, or “What if…” questions.
Every bad idea from the DWP that we can replace with a good one will be proof of what we already know: disabled people have a lot to contribute, and no decision about us should be made without us.
We want to know:
– How could the government and businesses make it easier for disabled people who are looking for a job to find it?
– How could the government and businesses make the interview process better, so that the candidate with the right skills gets the job regardless of a disability?
– How could the government make the claims process for Employment Support Allowance simpler and less stressful?
– How could the government react differently when they have made a mistake when dealing with a person’s ESA claim?
– How could the government make it easier to solve problems when disabled employees and their employers disagree?
– How could the government make it easier for disabled people looking for a job to learn the skills they need?
– How could the government make it easier for disabled people who want to start their own business to find out what they want to know?
– How could the government help employers to understand the rights of disabled people?
– How could the government make it easier for disabled people to learn about their rights as employees?
– Is there a question we haven’t asked here that we should be asking?
I’m really looking forward to reading your ideas and I can’t wait to send the DWP a big box of good ideas. Please get in contact at editor@disabilityunited.co.uk so we can get this document started and make change happen!
By Fleur Perry
Editor
Disability United
What do you think? Tell us on Facebook, tweet us @duniteduk, or email our Editor on editor@disabilityunited.co.uk
