Ammo for Activists
Charging Campaign

Andy Rickell, Chief Executive, BCODP

BCODP is about to launch its latest campaign in the fight against charging for social services. We know that a number of BCODP members are already at the forefront of this campaign, and we thought it was right to offer the support that we can, bridging the national and local campaigns, and offering support to groups who want it.

BCODP will do the following things :-

1. In 2002, and possibly carrying on into 2003, we are running a series of seminars in every region in the country (which all member groups should have received a letter about, just before Christmas). (I will be there to talk about the issues, and also about what other things BCODP is working on.) The seminars will be a chance to bring old and new campaigners together to look at how we can fight charging in the areas that we live. Please come along, and use it as a chance to bring people who are interested but who might not have been involved before – this issue is a great chance to recruit new members to the Movement.

2. We will use “Activate” and the website as a means of giving you up-to-date information about the campaign, and what member groups are doing around the country. We hope that the website will include discussion groups so that activists can talk one to another about how their campaigns are going, and share good ideas.

3. We will publicise this campaign at national level. I have already met the Conservative and Liberal Democrat spokespersons to inform them of what we are about to do and to seek their support – more information about this at the seminars! To help us publicise what is going on across the country it will obviously be helpful if you can keep us up-to-date with what disabled people are doing as part of a campaign in your area, even if you are not involved in it directly.

4. If you are thinking of holding a rally, demonstration or protest, I would be happy to address the meeting on behalf of BCODP, if that is what you want. If I can make it I will do my best to be there – it would also be a good opportunity to meet you and your group. (I would like BCODP to have a banner for that type of meeting – have you thought about having one?)

5. If there is anything else that you think we could do to help you in your campaign, please let us know – it might be something that a number of groups might find helpful.

Very briefly, here are some of the ways that we think will be effective in campaigning :-

1. “FAIR TAX, NOT “CARE” TAX” – We should argue that this charge is a tax on disabled people, because central government will not raise income tax for everyone to pay for the services which we need. Write letters to the local media blaming central government for these charges, and you may also get the local politicians on your side. Go and speak to them. Although the guidance on charging says it is entirely up to local councils to charge, in reality central government has cut back their money expecting that they will have no choice but to charge to prevent even larger cuts in social services. Also by calling charges a tax, which is what they are, you will get a lot of support from the public.

The public may not understand charging, but they all know what it is like to pay tax. Emphasising income tax as the way the money for social services should be raised will get you particular support from the Liberal Democrats – get them to say they support you. The Tories will also support you if you are concentrating on the Labour government, and even local Labour politicians may support you, blaming their central government colleagues to get the blame off them. Get quotes from supportive politicians into your press releases. Pass on to BCODP the name and party of every politician and the name of any other well-known person that you get to support you – we will keep a list and make sure the national parties realise the level of support we are getting.

2. “CAN’T PAY, WON’T PAY” or “CAN PAY, WON’T PAY” – One way to get councils to think twice about charging is if it is harder to raise the money than they thought or if you are bringing to the public’s attention individual disabled people who are being treated unfairly by the charges, or if charging is generally giving the council bad publicity. So you could choose, on your own or with others, not to pay your charges. Do get support from your local group, or from us if you have not got a local group, with this. Do not put yourself at financial risk (we suggest you put the money that you should be paying in charges safely away somewhere in case the council forces you to pay – unless you genuinely need that money to live on, obviously). The council will try to put you under pressure, but make sure you milk the publicity for any campaign and get maximum public support – that will ultimately hurt the council even more than the money you don’t pay.

The government’s guidance talks about non-payment in the following words at paragraph 91, “Once someone has been assessed as needing a service, that service should not be withdrawn because the user refuses to pay the charge. The council should continue to provide the service while pursuing the debt, if necessary through the civil courts.” So if at ANY time a council tries to do anything against a non-payer which is at all unfair, let us know – we will immediately put pressure on the politicians in your support. If they take you to court, get legal help (try your local DIAL or CAB) and argue the toss about ability to pay. If the court decides not to enforce payment the council may have no choice but to re-think its charging policy for everyone as well as you.

3. “LET’S BEAT THE SYSTEM” – The assessment system for services and the assessment system for charges involve social services in lots of paperwork which takes time and upsets their performance targets. So encourage every disabled person to make as much legitimate work as possible for social services, until they decide that the charging system costs them more than they get back in money. Encourage every disabled person who has not had an assessment for services to ask for one (that is good practice anyway), get people who have already had an assessment to ask for a review if there is ANY possibility that it might be in their interests (though watch out if Social Services use it as an excuse to try to reduce entitlement to services), and get every person who has been assessed for charges to appeal against them. Then make sure that you tell social services that your campaign is happening, as well as the media of course. There is no need for any individual to tell social services that they are taking part in the campaign – they are just exercising their rights.

4. “RIGHTS MEAN RESOURCES” – We will, and you might too, want to use the charging issue to point out to the public and politicians that it is all very well talking about disabled people’s rights, but they only become real when we have access to the money that we need to pay for the services we need to live independent lives as well. The charging issue is just a further indication of the lack of public money available to social services to fund proper personal assistant support for all who want it. So the charging issue is a good opportunity to put all politicians on the spot about increasing the money available that supports the full inclusion of disabled people – bring it up when the local council comes to set its budget.

If you have come up with any other ways of campaigning effectively on the charging issue please let us know – an article for “Activate” would be good. Let us know too what ideas did not work so well, and why they didn’t – it may save other activists wasting their efforts trying the same things.

This national campaign is unusual as it is really made up of lots of local campaigns – every local council will be different because each council can have a different charging policy. If you want to do some campaigning in your area but you are really struggling then contact us and we will put you in touch with other disabled people in your area and suggest how you might get started if there is no local group around – perhaps you might want to start a group so that you can campaign together.

Please do try to get to one of our regional seminars – there will be one somewhere near you. We are putting a lot of effort into the seminars and they are free for disabled people. If you would like us to put on a repeat of the seminar in your area, perhaps because your group cannot make it to the one on the timetable, then let us know. I cannot promise but we will see if that is possible. The list of seminar dates is in this “Activate” and we will keep printing the future dates in each issue.

Let’s show government that together we can organise a campaign which forces them to sit up and take notice.

© Copyright British Council of Disabled People 2002