Tressa Burke is chief executive of the Glasgow Disability Alliance. Writing exclusively for The Herald on Sunday, she warns seven staff will be made redundant in March - with six more at risk unless core Scottish Government funding is protected.

It’s auspicious to be writing this piece during Disability History Month – an opportunity to celebrate disabled people’s hard-won rights and achievements along with the contributions disabled people can and do make- when they have the support they need.

In my 25 years with Glasgow Disability Alliance (GDA), seven as one of the founding committee followed by being CEO for now over 18 years, I have seen examples of disabled people, activists and campaigners to be celebrated every day.

But rights have been regressed and disabled people are suffering so Disability History Month is also a call to action to turn the tide of regression.

Every day at GDA we facilitate the dignity, freedom, fairness and participation for those we represent. Through our lifelong learning and development programmes disabled people are building confidence and connections, raising aspirations, seeing others making progress and being spurred on to achieve incremental successes every day. From welfare rights and support to navigate social care, to wellbeing and support to get digitally connected, GDA centres disabled people’s rights and builds on their strengths. At the same time we demand equality, rights and social justice for disabled people and the fairness that others take for granted. Like our sister Disabled People led Organisations, GDA works with our members to shape policy, services & decisions, by sharing evidence, insights & data drawn from disabled people's lived experiences. And to enable this, peer support and collective empowerment is needed - because the world is full of barriers.

So I am bewildered by the juxtaposition of disabled people’s overwhelming need for support, and GDA’s track record in meeting these needs, with the current state of funding for our organisation.

It is unthinkable that during this Disability History Month, Glasgow Disability Alliance is preparing to make redundant more than 40% of its staff who deliver vital support for wellbeing and access to services.

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And there could be more – we are awaiting news of our core grant from the Scottish Government’s Equality Inclusion and Human Rights Fund. If this is not protected, another six staff will be affected. In total 72% of GDA’s entire staff are at risk.

In total, 85% of staff facing redundancy are disabled people, including myself. Our sister Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) Inclusion Scotland and Disability Equality Scotland are in the same position and this is shocking and shameful given our roles.

GDA’s recent in-depth survey of 621 disabled members paints a bleak picture of the poverty and inequality which disabled people are facing: 93% are concerned about money, 68% can’t manage utility costs, 58% can’t access home energy advice and 91% are concerned about social isolation and loneliness. This is compounded by 58% being digitally excluded which is a problem when so many services have gone digital by default. Connected with this, 79% couldn’t access the services they need and this included welfare rights, advice and support to maximise benefits.  

Simply put, disabled people are experiencing poverty, inequality and human rights regressions.

It is no wonder that 97% of people completing a recent GDA survey were concerned they had been forgotten in Government priorities and plans. We have a lack of action, diluted ambition and broken promises in the Scottish Government’s Disability Equality Plan. The removal of winter heating payments will also plunge disabled people into poverty along with punishing social care charges which are a backdoor tax which only disabled people pay.

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I find myself frequently despairing about how we have come to this point where disabled people are once again at the back of the queue, the bottom of the pile and fighting to survive, be seen and heard.

We have an almost 6,000 strong membership working with and for disabled people. DPOs like us are a lifeline to disabled people. We need to be protected and investment is required so that we can keep providing lifelines and facilitate the voices and lived experience disabled people face.

We can’t do this on our own. We need the Scottish Government to show progress on our core asks for the long-awaited Disability Equality Plan. We need funding for DPOs protected, increased investment in advice accessible settings fund and we need social care charges to be scrapped.

These asks were at the heart of our recent campaign Disabled People Demand Justice and very much still stand.

We have currently given full backing for a National Care Service to reform social care, raise standards and drive accountability.

But our support should not be taken for granted. We also need the Disability Equality Plan with our core asks embedded. These two initiatives are inextricably connected and the loss of faith in one will destabilise trust in the other.

More than ever, we need to pull together to begin the long journey to rebuilding fairness, rights, and disabled people’s participation in Scottish society.

Essentially, disabled people must be at the heart of building solutions for the Disability Equality Plan, the National Care Service and other major policy and service areas.

Our lived experience is an asset in getting all of this right.

There should be no decisions made about us, without our participation.

Nothing About Us Without Us.