Key facts -Deaf and Disabled people in London

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Deaf and Disabled people in London – key facts

This page provides key statistics about disabled and Deaf people in London, disabling barriers and their impact on inequality.

On this page:

You can find numerous statistics about the life chances of Disabled Londoners in the All in this together report.

In addition, the following are links to web pages which contain  up to date disability  statistics which might be helpful to you when you are:

  • Writing tenders
  • Lobbying or campaigning

Office for Disabiltiy Issues
www.odi.dwp.gov.uk/disability-statistics-and-research/disability-facts-and-figures.php

Papworth
www.papworth.org.uk/page.

Population

  • There are approximately 1.4 million disabled people in London.[ii]
  •  Women are slightly more likely to be disabled (55.1%) than men (44.9%).
  • Minority ethnic populations are more likely to be disabled: 19.2% of Asian/Asian British groups and 17.8% of Black/Black British groups are disabled.
  • Disabled people in London are younger than across the UK: 45.3% are under 55 years of age, compared with 40.7% of disabled people across the UK.
  • Disabled Londoners are twice as likely to be divorced as non-disabled people.

Independent living and inclusion

  • Disabled adults are more likely to live alone.[iii]
  • The number of adults in London receiving support to live independently is falling: 3230.1 of adults per 100,000 of the population were supported by social services in 2009/10 compared to 3343.7 in 2008-2009.[iv]
  • 13.4% of all adult social care clients in London in 2009-2010 received self directed support, such as direct payments and personal budgets.[v]
  • Out of area residential placements, where disabled people are living in residential placements in a different local council area to the one that pays for their support are very common in London and more comment than elsewhere in the UK.[vi]
  • Disabled people in London are less likely to have participated in cultural activities: significantly lower proportions of disabled people had visited a cinema or a museum or gallery in the previous 12 months.[vii]

Housing

  • 52% of people with impairments [viii] in the UK have difficulties with accessing rooms within the home, because of stairs or a lack of ramps or stair lifts in the home, approximately 41% have difficulty getting out of their homes because of the same barriers.[ix]
  • Only just over a quarter of households with disabled adults in London report having adapted accommodation and a quarter of these say this adapted accommodation is unsuitable.[x]
  • Disabled people in London are more likely to live in rented accommodation [xi] and are more likely to rent from the council.[xii]
  • 36.5% of disabled people lived in ‘non-decent housing’ compared to 31.4% of non-disabled.[xiii]

Education

  • Discriminatory barriers at school include not receiving essential support (even where an SEN statement specifies it), being excluded from mainstream education and low expectations from teachers.[xiv]
  • Pupils with SEN were about five times more likely to have been excluded from school than those without SEN in 2008/2009 in London (7.7% compared to 1.5%).[xv]
  • Although the proportion of pupils with SEN in England increased from 18.6% in 2006 to 20.9% in 2010 the proportion of pupils with statements of SEN (specifying the educational support a pupil should receive) has remained stable or fallen slightly (from 2.9% in 2006 to 2.7% in 2010).[xvi]
  • Over the same period the proportion of pupils with SEN _without _statements increased from 15.7 per cent in 2006 to 18.2 per cent in 2010.[xvii]
  • Disabled people are more likely to hold no formal qualifications (4.3%) compared with non-disabled people (1.6%).[xviii]
  • 34% of disabled people in London hold degree level qualifications compared with 46.6% of non-disabled people.[xix]

Employment barriers and discrimination

  • Disabled people in London are more than twice as likely (23.5%) as non-disabled people (10%) to think that they have been discriminated against when having been turned down for a job.[xxi]
  • Disabled people in London are also more than twice as likely to think they have been discriminated against at work with regard to a promotion or a move to a better position in the last five years.[xxii]
  • Disabled people in London are more than three times as likely (9.3%) as non-disabled people (2.6%) to report that transport issues have prevented them taking up a new job.
  • Around one in five disabled people (19%) in Great Britain reported having been treated unfairly compared to others in their workplace compared with approximately one in eight non disabled people (13%).[xxiii]

Employment characteristics

  • Disabled people are more than four times as likely (7.8%) as non-disabled people (1.8%) to be unemployed for more than five years.[xxiv]
  • Disabled people in temporary jobs are more likely than non-disabled people to be doing so because they could not find a permanent job.[xxv]
  • Disabled people are more likely to work part-time because of not being able to find a full-time job than non-disabled people.[xxvi]
  • Disabled people in London are more likely than non-disabled people to work in the public sector than the private sector.[xxvii]
  • The majority of disabled people living in London are categorised as economically inactive (68.1% compared to 32.2% of non-disabled people).[xxviii]

Income

  • 37% of households with disabled children across the UK live in poverty compared to 28% households with no disabled children.[xxix]
  • Average weekly pay for disabled people is £344.90 – £50 less than that of non-disabled people.[xxx]
  • This is not just the result of disabled people working fewer hours: average gross hourly pay of disabled people is also lower than that of non-disabled people, at £14.50 compared to £16.17 an hour.[xxxi]
  • More than one in three households with disabled adults earn less than £300 a week compared to one in five households with no disabled adults.[xxxii]
  • By contrast, households without disabled adults are twice as likely as those with disabled adults to earn more than £800 a week.[xxxiii]

Welfare Benefits

  • Around one in ten disabled people receive the care component of the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) (11.4%) and the mobility component of the DLA (11.7%). This approximates to 160,000 DLA recipients in London.
  • The coalition government has a goal of cutting the number of people receiving DLA by a fifth, or 20%. This approximates to 32,000 disabled people in London who will lose their DLA (based on mid-2009 London population estimates).[xxxiv]
  • Disabled people in London are more than four times as likely as non-disabled people to be receiving housing benefits.[xxxv]
  • Disabled people are more than twice as likely (66.7%) as non-disabled people (33.1%) to be receiving state benefits or tax credits.[xxxvi]

Access to services

  • Disabled people in London are almost twice as likely as non-disabled people to report that they are not treated with respect when using public transport .[xxxvii]
  • Disabled people across Great Britain are one and half times more likely than non-disabled people to report at least some difficulty in accessing health services.[xxxviii]
  • Disabled people in London are more likely (21%) than non-disabled people in London (17%) to be unsatisfied with local council housing or housing association housing.[xxxix]
  • Disabled people across Great Britain are more likely (23%) to report at least some difficulty in accessing justice services than non-disabled people (16%): this figure is prior to the impact of planned government cuts in legal aid .[xl]
  • Disabled people are also more likely to report at least some difficulty accessing culture, sports and leisure services compared with non-disabled people (14% compared to 9%).[xli]

Crime, bullying and harassment

  • 47% of disabled people had either experienced physical abuse or had witnessed physical abuse of a disabled companion.[xlii]
  • Research by Mind found that 71% of those with mental health issues had been a victim of crime in the preceding two years and 22% had been physically assaulted.[xliii]
  • Research in 2007 found that 8 out of 10 children with learning disabilities had been bullied and experienced bullying at school: nearly half had been bullied for over a year.[xliv]
  • Metropolitan police figures show a tripling of reports of hate crime against disabled Londoners in the past five years but the conviction rate in London for disability hate crime is much lower than the national rate.[xlv][xlvi]
  • Research by Mencap found all 14 participating police services believed that the level of reported disability hate crime is much lower than that of actual disability hate crime.[xlvii]

Public attitudes

  • A 2011 poll showed that a third of disabled people felt people’s attitudes towards them as a disabled person had worsened over the last year.[xlviii]
  • Prejudice towards disabled people was reflected in the British Social Attitudes survey: only one quarter of people surveyed said they would feel ‘comfortable’ if someone with a mental health condition moved in next door and only 13% said they would feel very ‘comfortable’ if someone with a learning disability was their local MP.[xlix]

More information

You can find further information at:

http://inclusionlondon.co.uk/all-in-this-together

http://inclusionlondon.co.uk/deaf-and-disabled-londoners-the-facts 

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[i] All statistics cited are available, along with links to original sources and further information, in two reports of research conducted by the Office for Public Management for Inclusion London. The reports are available to download at www.inclusionlondon.co.uk

[ii] All figures in this section are from the Annual Population Survey (APS) 2009

[iii]Family Resources Survey, 2008-2009, dataset analysis

[iv] Health and Social Care Information Centre (2008) Community Care Statistics 2008: Supported Residents, London: NHS Information Centre.

[v] Ibid.

[v] Ibid.

[vii]  From the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) 2010 Taking Part Survey: http://odi.dwp.gov.uk/roadmap-to-disability-equality/indicators.php

[viii]  Impairments relate to the loss of physiological and psychological functions of the body such as loss of sight, hearing, mobility or learning capacity. A person may have some form of impairment without having any activity limitation and may not be considered or consider themselves, as disabled.

[ix]  Life Opportunities Survey 2010 , Office for National Statistics

[x]  Survey of English Housing, 2007/8.

[xi] APS, 2009/10

[xii] Ibid.

[xiii] English House Condition Survey 2001

[xiv] Department for Education (DfE), 2010, Children with Special Educational Needs 2010: An analysis, Department for Education.

[xv]  Ibid.

[xvi] Ibid.

[xvii] Ibid.

[xviii] Family Resources Survey, 2008-2009, dataset analysis

[xix] Ibid.

[xx] Citizenship Survey 2009/1

[xxi] Ibid.

[xxii] APS 2009

[xxiii] Ibid.

[xxiv] Ibid.

[[xxv] Ibid.

[xxvi] Ibid.

[xxvii] Ibid.

[xxviii] Ibid.

[xxix]  Calculated after housing costs. Disability Equality Indicators, online: http://odi.dwp.gov.uk/roadmap-to-disability-equality/indicators.php. Using data from the FRS 2008/09

[xxx] APS 2009

[xxxi] Ibid.

[xxxii] Ibid.

[xxxiii] Ibid.

[xxxiv] FRS 2009

[xxxv]APS 2009

[xxxvi] Ibid.

[xxxvii] Citizenship Survey, 2009/2010

[xxxviii] Life opportunities survey, 2010

[xxxix] Citizenship Survey, 2009/2010

[xl] Life opportunities survey, 2010

[xli] Ibid.

[xlii] Scope 2007 ‘Attacks on disabled people are hate crimes, too.’ Available at www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/jul/31/socialcare.comment

[xliii] Mind (2007) Another Assault. London.

[xliv] Mencap (2007) Bullying Wrecks Lives: The Experiences of Children and Young People with a Learning Disability. 

[xlv]  See: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13752408 It is important to note that this increase does not necessarily mean that the incidence of hate crime against disabled people is rising. It could in part be the result of increased reporting.

[xlvi] Of 84 defendants prosecuted for disability hate crime in London between March 2009 and March 2010 61% were convicted; the national conviction rate of 76%. Crown Prosecution Service (2010) Hate Crime and Crimes against Older People Report, CPS.

[xlvii]  Sheikh et al (2011) Don’t Stand by Me: Hate Crime Research Report, London: Mencap.

[xlviii]  ComRes (2011) ‘Scope Discrimination Survey 15 May 2011' www.comres.co.uk/scopendppsurvey15may11.aspx

[xlix]  British Social Attitudes survey 2009