Category: news

Send from the Disability Unit 30-10-25:

Over the summer, Sir Stephen Timms, Minister for Social Security and Disability met with disabled people, the organisations that represent them and other experts to discuss how we should approach co-production in the Timms Review.

Today, the Minister is announcing the names of the two co-chairs with whom he will lead the review: Sharon Brennan and Dr Clenton Farquharson CBE.  The co-chairs will oversee a steering group of which a majority of members will be disabled people or representatives of disabled people’s organisations.  The group will be recruited through an open and transparent Expression of Interest (EOI) process, which has launched today and will run for four weeks. The steering group will not work alone: it will shape and oversee a programme of participation and engagement that brings together the full range of views and voices.  

Having taken the feedback over summer on board, updated Terms of Reference (ToR) have also been published setting out the next steps for the Review. The updated ToR contains a small number of revisions to reflect the current government policy following changes to the Universal Credit Act.  In line with the principle of co-production, they give the Review a broad remit to set its own strategic direction, priorities and workplan. The revised ToR have been published on GOV.UK at Timms Review of PIP: Terms of Reference 

Please see the Press Notice on GOV.UK at Disabled people to shape Timms Review into Personal Independence Payment and the Written Ministerial Statement at Written statements – Written questions, answers and statements – UK Parliament, for further details of this announcement. 

We would be very grateful if you could share the EOI widely throughout your networks. The EOI is available on GOV.UK at Expression of interest to join the Timms Review steering group – GOV.UK and will close on 30^th November.  Alternative formats (including BSL, Easy Read and audio) are available on GOV.UK at Expression of interest to join the Timms Review steering group

You may also be interested to note that today the Government’s response to the Pathways to Work consultation have separately been published at Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper

As mentioned, we are awaiting an impending ministerial meeting on the theme of transport, so we are gathering any views you have regarding transport. These will be gathered into core topics to share as headline, then we will send a document with more details to his policy team.

You can leave any comments here or email them to chair@rsngreaterlondon.org.uk

This consultation took place last year with Autistica driving much of the work that resulting in the launch of a report with a number of recommendation under 5 core themes.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-buckland-review-of-autism-employment-report-and-recommendations

After a consultation period last year, The Disability Action Plan has now been published on GOV.UK (on Monday 5 February).

You can find the content on Disability UnitX (Twitter), and Equality Hub Facebook, LinkedIn