Below I have shared a series of facts and figures that have been put together by Rhian Davies of Disability Wales, who I was lucky enough to hear speaking at the UNCRPD report launch in Parliament last week.

I was really  impressed by her speech which included loads of statistics that I thought would be useful for composing Tweets. She has kindly agreed to allow me to publish the following on my blog to publicise the depth of the problems facing disabled people in Wales.

I would like to express my thanks to Rhian and everyone at Disability Wales for their ongoing support.

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If you are active on Twitter, please feel free to adapt any of the information below to compose Tweets.

Disabled People in Wales 

• Disabled people comprise 26% of the Welsh population, higher than any other nation or region in the UK (ONS Family Resources Survey 2015/16) 

Poverty and the Impact of Welfare Reform 

• Nearly 40% of disabled people in Wales live in poverty, compared with 22% of non-disabled people, higher than anywhere else in the UK (JRF, 2018)

• 34 per cent of children who lived in a household where there was someone with an impairment or health condition were in relative income poverty compared with 26 per cent in households where no-one was disabled (National Survey for Wales 2017-18). 

• Evidence from the National Survey for Wales 2017-18 shows that 25 per cent of people with a ‘limiting long-standing illness’ or impairment report being in a household in material deprivation compared to 12 per cent of people without a limiting long-standing illness or impairment

• Welfare reform continues to subject disabled people to tightening eligibility, the removal and sanctioning of benefits and the spare room subsidy removal (“bedroom tax”). In addition the roll out of Universal Credit, is set to affect 8 million households across the UK, of which 58% will have a Disabled member

• It is estimated that in Wales almost a third of DLA Claimants were refused PIP, amounting to a total loss of £87m https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-45100070 

• Citizens Advice Cymru state that Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) are the two benefits people using their services had the most problems with during 2016/17) 

Disabled People and Employment 

• In 2017, 18 per cent of the working-aged disabled population in Wales held no qualifications compared to 6 per cent of the working-aged population that were not disabled. Disabled People were also less likely to have degree level qualifications: 26 per cent of the working-aged disabled population held qualifications at level 4 or above, compared to 41 per cent of the non-disabled working-aged population

• For the year ending 31 March 2018 the employment rate among disabled people aged 16-64 in Wales was 45.2%. The equivalent figure among people in Wales who are not disabled was 80.3%. Hence, there was a disability employment gap in Wales of 35.1 percentage points (pp) for the year ending 31 March 2018. This disability employment gap has barely changed in recent years.

• In some areas of Wales, the Disability Employment Gap is substantially higher: 50% in Neath and Port Talbot and 44% in Merthyr Tydfil and Conwy (Citizens Advice Cymru, 2018)

• The disability pay gap in Wales as recorded in 2015/16 is 13.3 per cent.  

• The WG Minister for Welsh Language and Life Long Learning Eluned Morgan AM is consulting with stakeholders including Disability Wales over setting an aspirational target to increase the numbers of disabled people in work and thereby reduce the disability employment gap in Wales. In England & Scotland, respective governments are aiming to halve the gap in 10 years https://beta.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2018-09/employability-plan-progress-report-2018.pdf 

• In February 2018, the National Assembly for Wales’ Economy and Infrastructure Committee published a Report, ‘Apprenticeships in Wales’. The Report included 14 recommendations. Recommendation 2 stated that the Welsh Government should produce a clear disabled person specific action plan to address the under representation of disabled people in Apprenticeships (currently 1.3%). This recommendation was accepted by the Welsh Government. Disability Wales is among a number of stakeholders contributing to the development of the Action Plan 

Housing 

• Despite the recent investment by the Welsh Government to build 20,000 new homes by 2021 there remains a severe shortage of accessible and wheelchair-accessible housing in Wales. Welsh Government is yet to set any targets for the number of accessible homes within this figure. (EHRC Wales, 2018) 

• Only one local authority out of 22 has set any targets for a percentage of accessible and affordable housing. Only 15% of LA’s said that the information they hold about disabled people’s housing requirements was ‘good’ (EHRC Wales, 2018). 

Hate Crime and Domestic Abuse 

• The latest data on recorded hate crimes in Wales where disability was judged to be a motivating factor show a 39 per cent increase (to 338 recorded crimes in 2016-17) compared to a year earlier. Disability was judged to be a motivating factor in one in ten hate crimes recorded Wales in 2016-17.

• For Wales and England combined in 2016-2017, both disabled women and men were more likely to be victims of any domestic abuse in the last year (15.9 per cent and 8.5 per cent respectively), compared with non-disabled people (5.9 per cent and 3.7 per cent respectively) 

Participation and Social Inclusion 

• National Survey for Wales data demonstrates that life satisfaction was generally lower for disabled people (mean score in 2017-18 was 7.2) than for non-disabled people (8.0)

• The National Survey for Wales in 2017-18 reported that a lower proportion of people with a limiting long-term illness or health problem had attended or participated in an arts, culture or heritage activity at least three times in the last year (64 per cent, compared with 80 per cent for people without a limiting illness).