A positive agenda for disability and employment:

A seminar on the Government’s Cuts and Reforms

Congress House, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS.

Monday 23 January, 2.00 – 4.00

Disability benefits are in the headlines – cutting benefits for disabled children, making people undergoing chemotherapy prove they aren’t ‘fit for work’, time-limiting benefits for hundreds of thousands of disabled people. Disabled people are getting angry, but the Government has yet to take notice.

The seminar will be chaired by Nicola Smith,Head of the Economic and Social Affairs Department at the TUC;speakers include -

• Prof Paul Gregg, author of Realising Potential, the 2008 report on conditionality and support in the benefits system.
• Benefit expert (and adviser to the last Government) Declan Gaffney.
• Leading bloggers Sue Marsh (“Diary of a Benefit Scrounger”) and Kaliya Franklin (“Bendy Girl”). 
• TUC economist Richard Exell, former member of the Disability Rights Commission.

This seminar is free, but seats will be reserved on a first-come – first-served basis, so please book a place in advance.

Agenda

2.00    Chair’s welcome: Nicola Smith

2.10    Paul Gregg: 'Incapacity benefit reform under Labour and the coalition'

2.30    Sue Marsh & Kaliya Franklin: 'Perverse incentives and how the government is creating them in the name of reform’

2.45    Declan Gaffney: 'Disability and employment: time for a new realism'

3.00    Richard Exell: ‘A Social Model of Incapacity’

3.10    Q+A to a panel of the speakers

3.55    Chair’s concluding remarks

4.00    Close