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DAN and all our allies need to keep up the pressure on this; we have our friends at Leornard Cheshire to thanks for eroding the basic human rights of all disabled people ( Callin v Leonard Cheshire Foundation) The public cost/private care loophole For over 20-years organisations, utilities and services that had been operated within the public sector have been transferred to the private sector - they were privatised. The privatisation of British Airways, British Gas and various other well known companies occurred so long ago [22-years in the case of British Gas] that discussion of whether they 'should' be privately or publicly owned is largely a thing of the past. However, as many of you will understand, privatisation did not stop with the selling of these large organisations and the level of privatisation continues apace, with everything from air traffic control to the Probation Service included. Of particular concern to many disabled people - and others with an interest in public services - the Department for Work and Pensions has been particularly active in identifying areas of public service that can be moved to the private sector. Indeed, recent announcements about 'getting people off incapacity benefit" http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/mar/14/disability.welfare make a great deal of the role of (and potential profits to) private companies. Whilst such moves may be welcomed by some, there are human rights concerns, not least that international human rights obligations apply to governmental organisations, not to private companies or charities. The practical result of this was seen in a line of cases, many involving elderly people in residential care, who were arbitrarily moved from the institutions in which they were living. Although living in private accommodation - rather than a home owned and operated by a local authority - the fees for accommodating these people were paid by local authorities. This situation should, as far as the Government were concerned, have been of no consequence to such people's human rights; according to Ministers, the Human Rights Act was written in such a way that such people's human rights should have been protected, allowing cases to be brought before the UK courts and, where necessary, appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg. No matter what Minister's may have intended, the courts (or, more specifically, judges) had other ideas: in a line of cases, beginning with Callin v Leonard Cheshire Foundation in 2002, UK courts held that residents of private residential institutions could not claim their rights under the Human Rights Act, even where public funds were used to pay for that accommodation. Not surprisingly, many people - including Government Ministers - were alarmed by such judgements and, in particular, charities for elderly people campaigned to correct this loophole in the Human Rights Act. To date, the loophole remains unfilled, but an announcement by Ivan Lewis - Minister for Social Care - on Thursday 27 March suggested that the Health and Social Care Bill, currently working its way through Parliament, may become the means to plug the loophole... at least in the case of elderly people in residential care, paid for by public funds. What is less clear is what the proposals in the Health and Social Care Bill will actually amount to, although such a Bill would not seem the ideal mechanism for closing the private provision of public services gap in other areas. For example, if people receiving incapacity benefit are to be forced to attend work focussed programmes - or even fitness for work assessments - with private companies, how can their human rights be safeguarded? Such concerns are not merely academic or political, but very real: if governments can simply side-step their human rights obligations by privatising services, the international human rights mechanisms will be rendered irrelevant. If private companies are to undertake such work - which necessarily involves the collection of private and sensitive information - how will the government ensure that it is kept private; for that matter, is it appropriate for private companies to ever have access to this type of information when those involved have no opportunity to object to it? If private companies are to turn a profit - and directors of private companies have a legal obligation to act in the interest of their shareholders - how can the government ensure that profits are not put before the well-being and best interests of the public? Such concerns are not confined to disabled people or incapacity benefit, there is evidence that increasing numbers of individuals and organisations are questioning the extent to which the state should be turned over to the private sector. As will be clear from the discussion above, this issue concerns the human rights of individuals, but it also concerns wider issues of policy and politics. With disability still treated as a 'special interest' issue, that is to say an issue that is not seen as being of interest to the wider population, the risks are high. Additional Reading Inquiry into the Meaning of Public Authority under the Human Rights Act Joint Committee on Human Rights, Ninth Report: The Meaning of Public Authority under the Human Rights Act [ in HTML and PDF] The private care loophole has received significant attention in the legal and care professions, so you may also find it useful to enter 'Callin v Leonard Cheshire Foundation' in your favourite search engine and review the range of articles written on the subject. Further Information:- http://society.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/0,,384580,00.html Q&A on Human rights Act 1998 from DoH website:- http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Managingyourorganisation/Equalityandhumanrights/HumanRights/DH_4136018 UKwatch:- http://www.ukwatch.net/tags/privatisation Colin Revell _________________________________________________________________ Invite your Facebook friends to chat on Messenger http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/101719649/direct/01/ ________________End of message________________ This Disability-Research Discussion list is managed by the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds (www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies). Enquiries about list administration should be sent to [log in to unmask] Archives and tools are located at: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html You can VIEW, POST, JOIN and LEAVE the list by logging in to this web page.