Friday 2 July 2010

From ‘Dynamic Director’ to ‘State Scrounger’: a Case Study

Greig McNeish has always been a ‘workaholic’. An ambitious, hardworking and dedicated professional who is passionate about making a difference in the world. ‘Work-life balance’? “Nah – that’s for wimps!” Greig would scoff. As a director working for a well-known UK charity, Greig was happy to work evenings and weekends in his ‘pursuit of excellence’ and drove himself and his team hard. In fact, for Greig, working a 50 hour week was regarded as a ‘slow week’ and he regularly forfeited his annual leave in order to complete vital projects.

In a career in special needs education spanning over 30 years, Greig had an exemplary record of attendance and it would take something as serious as kidney stones to make Greig even consider taking time off sick. Even when he broke his ankle, he managed to hobble into work, personally paying for taxis to take him to and from his place of employment. On the few occasions he had ‘free time’ he chose to spend this ministering to those who were in the final stages of terminal illness, both in their homes and local hospices.

Before embarking upon his long career in special needs education, Greig had served in the Navy and was the proud recipient of a campaign medal for his work in the Falklands. Greig was raised with a really strong work ethic and according to an ex-colleague, “when he commits to something, he commits 110%”. Greig has never believed in claiming benefits and has not been unemployed since starting work at the age of sixteen: he has 36 years of full-time employment under his belt, and work has always been his life.

Now, I am certainly not advocating this as a desired way of working. However, as a recovering workaholic myself, I understand the desire to do work that is really meaningful and rewarding and I certainly remember the excitement, many years ago, of finding a job that allowed me to make a difference.

However, over the past few years I also came to realise the impact that this way of working can have upon our long term physical, emotional, mental and even spiritual wellbeing. Focussing 99.9% of our efforts on work at the expense of other key areas of our life such as family, health and finances, is neither a healthy nor sustainable place to be.

Perhaps there are some lessons for us here regarding our expectations of employees during the current economic downturn. As we are all painfully aware, the recession is having a significant impact upon public sector jobs, particularly when the demand for our services is likely to rise in some areas rather than reduce. Public sector jobs are already under threat and the situation is likely to worsen in light of the ‘emergency budget’ and its intention to freeze pay in the public sector. Recruiting and retaining the talent needed to help our economic recovery is going to prove a significant challenge. How long can we continue to put our employees under this level of pressure and job insecurity? How long can a hardworking and loyal employee cover the work of one or even two other colleagues? There is only so much stretch in an elastic band before it snaps…

For Greig, the elastic band snapped in 2007. Driving home late one night after a gruelling 6 day work schedule, he ran his car off the road. No-one else was involved, he was just physically and mentally exhausted. It took the emergency services several hours to detach his car from the tree it had hit, and by all accounts Greig was lucky to be alive. For nearly a year, Greig ignored the pain to his lower back and legs and continued to work as before, albeit he did notice he was becoming more and more exhausted. However, the deterioration to his spine became increasingly disabling and after a further year, he was dismissed by his employer on the grounds of incapacity. No redundancy, no pension, just his regular notice period. On top of all this, he also discovered that he had contracted an inherited type two diabetes, and later discovered he had vitamin B12 deficiency complications as well.

Greig was, for the first time in his life, entering the system as a client rather than as a service provider and recalls with great sadness how his life was suddenly turned upside down.

“If I ever treated a client in the way I have been treated, I would have been instantly and rightly dismissed!” says Greig “There is a complete disregard for me as a rational human being and all decisions regarding my care seem to be made without any involvement from me whatsoever. Sometimes I feel as though I have ceased to exist as a human being and am now a mere statistic. I have always been passionate about creating client-centred services so feel immensely disillusioned with the attitude and approach of some of the staff I have come into contact with. I find it disturbing how completely oblivious some staff are to how depressed I have become and how this, in turn, affects my ability to cope. Quite frankly, as a trained psychologist myself, I do not understand how so-called ‘professionals’ can be so ignorant of the impact that becoming disabled can have upon a person’s emotional and mental wellbeing.”

Since becoming disabled, Greig’s life now revolves around his medication schedule which includes lyrica and morphine for pain control and a vast cocktail of other drugs for both the side effects of the medication and his diabetes. Greig is now claiming disability living allowance (DLA) and is struggling to get the higher level of benefit he desperately needs. Greig’s disability is permanent and degenerative, and he will not suddenly get better. Denying him benefits will certainly not get him back into the workforce any quicker. If he could, Greig would return to work tomorrow, as claiming benefits and being dependent upon others in such a disempowering way is a humiliation he cannot tolerate.

I spoke with Greig recently about the impact of the budget upon his experience as a disabled person.

“Quite frankly” says Greig,” I have had enough of being treated like a scrounger or a fraudster. I have worked all my adult life and never claimed benefits before, and as such have been penalised for this. Regardless of this, I am forced to continually prove my disability despite the numerous medical reports already produced about me, and x-rays and MRI Scans. In my opinion, the budget is a disaster and puts disability rights back several decades. Introducing a new medical assessment for DLA is a nonsense and a further waste of public money that could be better spent providing real job opportunities for those disabled people who can be reintegrated into the workforce.

“From 2013, those of us seeking DLA will have to go through a strict new medical assessment that the Government says will help ‘reduce dependency and promote work’. Don’t the politicians understand that DLA is not an ‘out of work’ benefit, but a benefit to off-set the cost of living with a disability? I cannot make ends meet now and I rely on, and am grateful for, the good will of friends who anonymously send food to me, and I really fear for my future. Unless something radically changes, my house will be repossessed this autumn and then I really don’t know what I’ll do. I am becoming so depressed by my situation that sometimes I just don’t feel I have the energy to go on”.


Greig, who was once an active student of Bushido Karate, has not left the house for several months as he can no longer afford to maintain his car. Living in semi-rural Gloucestershire, his car is his sole means of transport and his increased isolation is contributing to his depression. Even if he could afford to fix his car, the pain he now experiences when attempting to drive a manual car is a major problem. He has been actively seeking funding to have his car adapted for his disability, but so far has had no success.

Greig’s experience of being trapped in a flawed system is not unique.
You only have to follow some of the conversation threads on disability websites to discover how fearful people are of losing their benefits and how deeply hurt people are at being labelled ‘scroungers’ or even ‘fraudsters’.

Particularly in the current climate, it is essential that we don’t lose sight of the fact that it is people i.e. real human beings that we are talking about. We live (I hope) in a civilised society that values all its citizens regardless of their diversity. Disabled people are a vital part of our communities and if this fact is not enough for you, then let’s not forget that disability, in one form or another, will come to most of us if we live long enough.

As a master practitioner of NLP (taught by the great linguist, John Grinder himself) I have a deep fascination with language and the impact that language has upon our values and beliefs. Language is not used accidentally, and politicians and the media know this very well. In my model of the world, referring to people as ‘scroungers’, ‘work-shy’ or a ‘drain on the system’ is completely unacceptable. This sets neighbour against neighbour and only serves to reinforce divisions and resentments, as people are led to believe that their problems would suddenly evaporate if only a particular group wasn’t scamming the system. Unfortunately, this ‘divide and rule’ strategy can be very useful during times of economic or political unrest particularly when we are searching for someone else to blame for our predicament.

In terms of how a civilised society treats its disabled citizens (and voters), let’s not forget what the ‘social model’ of disability taught us way back in the 1980s: most of the time it is not the person’s condition that is disabling but the attitudes of those they come into contact with, along with the disabling environments and contexts created by those in control. Whether or not these barriers are consciously or unconsciously created, doesn’t matter. They still serve to exclude people who would otherwise be more independent and more fully engaged.

It is my belief that people’s attitudes are one of the biggest barriers to disability equality, and this contributes to people’s lack of creatively when exploring the potential for ‘reasonable adjustments’. Language and imagery emerge from our attitudes and beliefs, and are a reflection of how we view the world. Labels such as ‘benefits’; ‘welfare’; ‘incapacity’; ‘disability’ are, in my opinion, outdated terms and focus on a person’s limitations not strengths. I believe that it is time to stop viewing disability as a ‘problem’ (and disabled people as a burden), and time to effect change at the macro level.

I had the privilege of working with Birmingham City Council in the late 1980’s, early 1990’s when the Council introduced a radical programme of disability equality training. Unlike other equality awareness programmes at that time, their programme was challenging, thought provoking, and at the same time, totally inspiring and fun! The sessions were facilitated by two highly talented and charismatic trainers (one was also a ‘stand-up comic’ and the other a musician). Both also happened to be disabled. With their help, we unpacked the medical model of disability, looked at imagery, art, culture, music, language and attitudes around disabilities. We also looked at real and constructed barriers and what we could do to eradicate, or at least reduce, them.

For me, this training was transformational. Up until this point, the only disabled people I knew were the clients that I worked with, and this was the first time I understood that disability was part of the larger equalities agenda. Another key feature of the training was that it was pitched at senior managers who could influence council policy and service development. If we want to effect change, we need to ensure that people have both the awareness and the tools to get the job done, along with professional support and strong leadership.

The training programme in Birmingham took place over twenty years ago, and I am wondering what impact such a training programme would have upon central government today, as it considers its approach to people with disabilities. I am also wondering what sustainable progress has been made since this time, in the public sector overall.

I’m sure there are lots of good things happening out there that we could all learn from....so, come on colleagues, let’s pool our ideas! If you have any case studies you would like to share with other public sector organisations around disability (or any other aspect of diversity) then please email them to me and I will publish them on our website.

Remember... together, we can make a difference!

2 comments:

  1. Hello! Great blog, thank you. Would you mind if I repost it in full on my blog? It'll clearly link back to your blog & be fully attributed. BendyGirl

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi there BendyGirl! Sorry for the delay in responding. Yes, it's fine to reproduce the post in full. Glad you enjoyed it..

    I wish I could say there was a happy ending to Greig's story - sadly not. I heard from him yesterday that his bank has charged him several hundred quid this month for going overdrawn.

    This basically means his benefits have all gone this month and he has nothing to live on. Something not quite right here, eh?.....

    ReplyDelete