Solicitor claims campaign groups are allowing the Scottish Government to continue hated PIP regime

Scotland’s only social enterprise solicitor has hit out at disability organisations, claiming they've abandoned disabled people and compromised their social mission.

Daniel Donaldson, founder of Legal Spark, told TFN many campaigning organisations were enjoying a “love-in” with the Scottish Government that had made them “agents of the state” to the extent they had become wholly uncritical of its policies.

The disabled solicitor is currently suing both the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Scottish Government for compensation after they revoked his Personal Independent Payments (PIP) for a year.

Despite being one of one the most controversial and hated UK government policies in recent history, Donaldson said disability organisations had allowed the Scottish Government to continue the roll out of PIP to the detriment of thousands of disabled Scots.

Scotland was given the power to halt PIP and introduce its own system under extra powers granted in the Scotland Act as part of the 2014 independence referendum.

However, as exclusively revealed in an interview with TFN in 2017, social security minister Jeane Freeman said the Scottish Government's hands are tied and she would allow the DWP to continue undertaking the tests because it was too complex to halt them.

This situation could continue till 2021 when the new social security agency is in place. In the meantime, around 100,000 people will have to undergo DWP PIP tests.

Legal Spark, which Donaldson founded in 2015, was seeing the fallout from the policy as more disabled people were turning to the firm to appeal benefit sanctions and unfair decisions.

Disability organisations should be challenging the Scottish Government to halt PIP but instead were backing it, Donaldson said.

He said: “We all know the story about the DWP – but the same is story is being told by the Scottish Government and there is no criticism.

“A lot of these organisations were set up as grass roots organisations but that’s dramatically shifted. They’ve gone from user-led to funding-led. By changing the way they do business it has left their user group hanging and in doing so compromised their social mission.”

Donaldson claims the Scottish Government’s new social security agency has done nothing to change the hated assessment regime.

“It is not right they are allowing thousands of disabled scots to be treated this way when they have the power to do something about it,” he said.

“The fact is they have had nearly two years to take some action but haven’t. As such they have acquiesced with the DWP to discriminate against people with mental health problems."

And Donaldson claimed: “Disablilty organisations are not truly representing the views of disabled people if they are allowing this to happen.

“If you take away the Scottish Government funding there’s no substance to what they do.”

These organisations are not truly representing the views of disabled people - Daniel Donaldson

Inclusion Scotland strongly refuted Donaldson’s claims.

Bill Scott, Inclusion Scotland’s director of policy, said: “There is no surprise in being told that disabled people want the roll-out of PIP halted. We talk to disabled people in their hundreds each year at our engagement events and it is they who set Inclusion Scotland’s policies and not the Scottish Government.

“They told us that they wanted the roll-out of PIP halted and we have consistently called for that since PIP was first introduced.

“Inclusion Scotland will happily stand on a very proud record of being fearless in championing disabled people’s rights within Scotland, at a UK level and internationally - where we have fought for disabled people’s rights at the UN."

Minister for Social Security, Jeane Freeman, said: “I have never said that I “would allow the DWP to continue undertaking the tests because it was too complex to halt them”. What I did say is that there has been additional complexity created by the UK Government as a result of their insistence on carrying on with the movement of Scottish clients from Disability Living Allowance to the UK Government PIP, when these people will then face a further change at the point that they move onto a Scottish system.

“The Scottish Government has consistently called for a halt to the roll out of PIP by the UK Government – the only authority at this time with the powers to do so – until they are able to fix the many problems with it and put a stop to the distress that it is causing for disabled people across the country. We have been making that call since early 2015 but the UK Government has chosen to ignore us and many others.”

“The suggestion that disabled people’s organisations are less willing to hold the Scottish Government to account because of funding, is utterly false and is insulting to those who work tirelessly to improve the lives of disabled people. These organisations, which are some of the biggest in Europe, do not rely solely on Scottish Government funds. I have found all the disability organisations I have dealt with to act with integrity as they campaign and lobby for change on behalf of disabled people and challenge our policies.”

CORRECTION: The Scottish Government comment which was originaly included in this article has been removed because it wasn't provided in relation to this story. We apologise for this error.