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This site last updated 21st July 2008
21st July 2008
The Government has announced a green paper consultation on radical changes to the benefits system.
The changes have some radical ideas like making people who have been unemployed for 2 years do community tasks in return for their benefits.
James Purnell the minister responsible will be holding a question and answer session on the green paper via a web chat on Tues 22nd of July on the No 10 site.
Link to The Green Paper.
Link to The Press release.
Link to The Guardian's Article.
Publishers Comment
It is possibly well passed time that the benefits system was overhauled and the many people that seem to see it as a passport to a life of leisure is stopped. This sadly includes some Carers who over play the disabilities of the people they care for or who go along and support fraudulent claims from people who are not as disabled as they claim.
It is noted that the only people exempt from the need to work after two years of benefits are Full Time Carers and those whose disabilities are so severe that it makes them most in need of support. It should also be noted that there are many Carers who care for people whose disabilities will no longer qualify them to not work. This bit needs careful consideration and care about how it is drafted if there is not to be significant distress caused to people who have never done anything but care for the person with a disability who once upon a time fitted they system.
17th July 2008
ECJ Decision: Coleman v Attridge Law
[Thanks to Paul Michell of Cloisters, who acted for Mrs Coleman, for providing this summary]
The ECJ (European Courts of Justice) has, this morning, published its landmark decision in Coleman v Attridge Law, in answer to questions posed of it by London South Employment Tribunal. Following the Advocate General’s opinion given on 31 January 2008, the ECJ has confirmed that the Equal Treatment Framework Directive is intended to prohibit associative discrimination in the context of direct discrimination and harassment.
Ms Coleman alleges she was directly discriminated against and harassed by her former employers on grounds of the disability of her son, for whom she is the primary carer. According to the ECJ's decision, the Directive is intended to prohibit direct discrimination or harassment on grounds of disability, even where the person concerned is not disabled themselves.
The Directive applies to age, sexual orientation, religion and belief, as well as disability. Following the ECJ's decision, direct discrimination by association in those other contexts must also be prohibited. (Notably, the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 do not yet appear to afford protection from direct discrimination by association in the context of age.)
Ms Coleman's former employer was a law firm, not a public body. Hence the next stage in her case will be to ascertain if the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 can be read purposively, so as to conform with the intent of the Framework Directive which it is supposed to implement.
See the Full Press Release here
FULL JUDGMENT OF THE COURT (Grand Chamber)
The Guardian Online's take on the issue
Publishers Comment
It is disapointing that Carers have to resort to the law still to get fair and honest treatment by employers and in many cases by councils in order to get rights that are taken for granted by non-carers and parents of children with no disabilities.
My thanks to Daniel Barnett for providing information on this case.
10th June 2008
The government is to announce plans to double the amount of short breaks for people who look after frail and disabled relatives in England. The announcement, expected today, is part of a 10-year drive to improve the lives of the UK's 6m carers with the £255m over 3 years.
According to the Department of Health an extra £150m will double the amount of short breaks time available over 2 years.
More details can be had from the Dept of Health Press Release
Publishers Comment
Of course its fine to announce money but is it new money or reannounced money? What if any research has happened to the other money poured into "Carers Services" in the last 10 years and how this has affected real carers lives? It is also easy to grab a headline that it will double carers short breaks but in order for short breaks to be doubled you have to be receiving some in the first place, double nothing is still nothing. I fear that this money will just be wasted again by councillors keen on their own ego's and on more managers for the health service, I wait to be proved wrong.