Defend Disability Benefits

http://www.swansheffield.org.uk/ Sheffield Welfare Action Network (SWAN) is one of the lead organisations in the campaign against the http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2006/01/331755.html proposed welfare reforms. They are organising the forthcoming http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2006/05/340016.html People's March and Rally Against the IB cuts, a national demonstration on the 17th June being held in Sheffield. SWAN has been steadily helping build the campaign and seen opposition grow to the draconian welfare reforms as their implications become clear. There is also a http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2006/05/339810.html benefit concert in aid of SWAN on the 20th May.

In anticipation of the reforms SWAN held a http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2005/10/324930.html conference on disability benefits in October 2005 to discuss the issue. Those at the conference voiced their experience of the welfare system as a demoralising and threatening one, the prospect of further sanctions being terrifying to many.

SWAN went on to http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2005/10/325173.html leaflet and http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2006/03/337177.html have stalls to publicise the sanctions. In February 2006 there was a http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2006/01/332232.html demonstration against the cuts (http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2006/02/333756.html Report and http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2006/02/332998.html Photos). SWAN continued to campaign - making links with organisation such as http://www.bcodp.org.uk/ the British Council of Disabled People, http://www.disabilityalliance.org/ Disability Alliance and http://www.allwomencount.net/EWC%20WwDiss/WVindex.htm WinVisible - as well as lobbying MP's and councellors - encouraging submissions to the green paper on welfare reform and submitting a formal response that concluded:

We would like to make it clear that SWAN supports the principle of offering good quality support to claimants who feel ready to accept it. To us, the central issue is one of control. The proposals in the Green Paper will mean that the state, and not the individual, will decide whether a person is ready to think about a return to work. We cannot emphasise strongly enough the importance that many, many claimants attach to having pressure-free time in which to make a recovery, and the extreme stress and anxiety which they experience when this is threatened. We hope that we have given claimants a voice in the consultation process, when they are almost entirely absent from the Green Paper.

SWAN believes that disabled people themselves are the best-placed people to decide on suitable programmes and work-related activities, to be undertaken at their own pace and at the right time. SWAN would like assurances that there will be no sanctions against those who do not take part in such programmes, and that there will be no compulsion to take part in healthcare treatments.

We would prefer a humane benefits system where the current mistrust and fear of the DWP is replaced by a genuine feeling of being supported. This will require some considerable work on the DWP\x92s part, and will certainly not be helped by the threat of sanctions. We believe that claimants will gladly accept good-quality support to return to work if they feel ready, and if this support is offered by agencies which they have no need to fear, and that this will entirely negate the \x93need\x94 for sanctions.

To find out more about SWAN, read our full response, keep up to date with news about the reforms or read more about the conference, go to the http://www.swansheffield.org.uk/ SWAN website.

Past articles

• Sheffield Welfare Action Network Meeting(SWAN) - 09.03.2006
• Sheffield/Nation Wide Protest against the Incapacity Benefit reforms - 25.01.2006
• Report on Disablity Benefit Reforms Demo - 16.02.2006
• Protesting against the IB cuts with a big banner! - 30.03.2006
• Welfare Reform to be extremely severe - 17.01.2006
• Incapacity Benefit Cuts Protest - 04.02.2006
• Meeting on incapacity benefit reform - 23.11.2005
• Protesting against Incapacity Benefit cuts - 08.10.2005
• National Disability Benefits Conference, Sheffield 15/10/05 - 04.10.2005
• Peoples \x91March And Rally: Challenge the IB cuts! - 08.05.2006