Category Archives: disability
Disability charity makes last-ditch plea for support
Opportunities Through Technology secretary Brian Snaith in the busy classroom
12:00pm Wednesday 12th September 2012 in News
A CHARITY helping disabled people remain independent and in work will close within months if it cannot find funding.
Opportunities Through Technology (OTT), based at the Colchester Institute, introduces disabled people to computer equipment and software to help them live a life without the need for support.
But after losing a grant of £25,000 due to government cuts to funding the charity is struggling to keep its head above water, and will close before Christmas if more cash cannot be found.
Norman Lamb, King’s Fund – Integration
Transforming Local Services
A reshuffle is a strange thing.
I’ve followed the health reforms pretty closely so I’m relatively up to speed.
But often, new ministers find themselves in departments where they know only the bare bones of the policy. And they’re expected to turn themselves into experts overnight.
I’ve been an MP long enough to hear my fair share of new ministers read out speeches in the Commons and clearly have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. The crueller members of the opposition can sometimes make it a bit of a trial for them.
But the machinations of government can’t just creak to a halt as the new people find their way around. So new ministers rely on ever-present civil servants to guide them. They rely on ministers who haven’t been reshuffled to keep a hand on the tiller. And they rely on their fellow new ministers to be conscientious, decisive and creative about their own parts of the portfolio.
Benefits changes: Universal Credit system warning
Seventy organisations involved in the benefits system have raised concerns about a government overhaul.
9 September 2012 Last updated at 09:06
The Universal Credit aims to make the system simpler by replacing five work-based benefits with one benefit.
The groups are worried about moving to monthly payments, access to an online system and whether a new IT system will be ready by an October 2013 deadline.
The government says managing the system online will save money, and that the new benefit is set to come in on time.
Ministers have said they are determined to reform the system, so it pays people to work rather than claim benefits.
Written evidence, seen by BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend, was submitted to the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee by organisations representing councils, charities, trades unions, business groups and housing organisations.
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