Low Review

• how the mobility component of Disability Living Allowance is being used by care home residents and impact of loss of benefit.
• funding arrangements for personal mobility needs between local authorities and care home providers.
• responsibilities of care home providers in relation to the personal mobility needs of residents.

The Low Review is being led by an independent steering group and will report on its findings by the end of October 2011.

Lord Low of Dalston, CBE

Colin Low has been a lifelong campaigner for the rights of blind and disabled people, especially in the field of education. He has been a member of the ExCo of ICEVI since 1987 and was made President in 2010.  He has been President of the European Blind Union (EBU) since 2003 and is a Vice-President of the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), having held the position of Chair from 2000-2009.

Having been appointed to the UK House of Lords in May 2006 for his work as Chairman of RNIB and as a long-time campaigner for disability rights, he was President of Skill (the National Bureau for Students with Disabilities), until 2011, an orgainsation he helped found in the 1970s. He is also President of the Disability Alliance, which works to combat poverty amongst disabled people.  He has also undertaken important roles in a wide range of other organisations, including the National Federation of the Blind of theUK, the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal and the Disability Rights Commission.

Steering group

The group is made up of representative stakeholders from a range of backgrounds but with a common interest in ensuring the mobility needs of people living in residential care are appropriately met:

John Adams OBE
John’s background is in adult social care provision; having worked in both the voluntary and statutory sectors. Since 2005 he has worked independently and is the General Secretary of the Voluntary Organisations Disability Group (VODG) an umbrella body for third sector provider organisations and until recently was also the Chief Executive of a small national charity for children with congenital hemiplegia. John is a Social Worker by training and was formerly a long-serving Director at Scope

 Pauline Bardon
A forty-something mother of three  from North London.  Paulines daughter, Gabriella, is 18 and has Rett Syndrome. She is her full time carer. Pauline is also a Governor at a special needs school and treasurer of their PTA.  Prior to becoming her daughter’s carer she worked in IT developing accounting software.

Judith Geddes
Judith is Co-Chair Resources Network for The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS). Judith is the lead responsibility for working with the Local Government Association on mapping the allocation of resources and spend on social care across the country. In her substantive role, Judith is Executive Director Adult and Community Services for Bournemouth Borough Council with lead responsibility for Adult Social Care, Housing, Safer Stronger Communities and Arts and Culture

Dr. Peter Kenway
Dr. Peter Kenway is co-founder and director of the New Policy Institute, an independent think tank set up in 1996 to promote evidence-based analysis of social problems.  NPI is best known for its annual Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion report, published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Wendy Tiffin
Wendy is an active campaigner on local and national disability issues. She has campaigned locally to improve pavements for wheelchair users and through placing pressure on the local council has succeeded in getting pavements widened, the camber reduced and potholes filled in. Nationally she has been a vocal opponent to the proposed removal of mobility payments living in residential care.

Gary Vaux
Gary Vaux is an experienced welfare rights officer and manager, with 35 years direct local government experience, mostly spent in social services settings.  He also chairs the Social Security Advisers Group at the Local Government Association (LGA), and represents the LGA and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services in policy discussions with the Department for Work and Pensions.