In July 2024, we published a report on the impact of social care charges on Disabled adults in England, highlighting how local authorities are failing to meet the public sector equality duty through their charging polices. We are immensely grateful to Linklaters law firm for their invaluable support, assisting with data analysis and documenting our findings. Below is the press release published by Linklaters on the 3rd October 2024.
Linklaters supports Disability Law Service research into home care charges for Disabled adults in England
Linklaters pro bono volunteers have supported Disability Law Service (DLS) on a large-scale research project examining whether local authorities in England are complying with their statutory equality obligations when charging Disabled adults for non-residential care.
According to DLS’s findings, shared in its report calling for an end to the charging system for Disabled adults in England, 92.5% of local authorities researched were deemed to have failed to demonstrate full compliance with their public sector equality duty in administering their non-residential care charging policies. Reasoning for this finding included failure to maintain accurate data on the impact of the policies for Disabled people and the proportionality of that impact.
The public sector equality duty requires public bodies to carry out their duties with due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations between Disabled persons and non-Disabled persons.
DLS contacted 40 local authorities in England as part of the study, selected to be proportionally representative of England’s local authorities as a whole. Linklaters volunteers supported DLS to compile analysis of the local authorities’ responses.
Alison Wilson, Global Head of Litigation, Arbitration & Investigations and Executive DiversAbilities Champion at Linklaters, comments: “We are proud to have supported the Disability Law Service on this important project and their work to protect the legal rights of Disabled people in the UK.”
Find out more about Linklaters’ Social Impact work here.