20 Feb 2024
The University of Bristol’s Personal Finance Research Centre, with funding from the abrdn Financial Fairness Trust, approached us to understand more about what ‘financial wellbeing’ meant to disabled people in the UK and what could be done to improve this and access to financial services.
As well as reflecting the views and experiences of disabled people, our research went further and looked beyond the generic label of ‘disabled’ to examine if demographic factors such as age and income impacted on people’s financial wellbeing.
The research was conducted in collaboration with the research team at the University of Bristol with input from an expert advisory group. It comprised eight focus groups with 34 disabled people; an online community discussion with 23 disabled people; and a survey which was completed by 815 disabled people. All participants were members of RiDC’s Consumer Panel.
Findings indicated that one-in-three disabled people in the UK are struggling financially. Age, income level and types of impairment are key factors in influencing disabled people’s living standards and what they can afford. Those of working age were significantly more affected than other groups in terms of the negative impacts on their financial health.
The call for change
Findings from this research gave researchers at the University of Bristol and the abrdn Financial Fairness Trust strong evidence to call for four key interventions to help disabled people improve their financial situations:
▪ Better access to employment for those who can work
▪ A benefits system that provides a proper safety net
▪ Targeted support to reduce the costs of disability
▪ Access to essential services and advice
These findings were distributed widely to various stakeholders in the UK government as well as the private sector and presented to various interest groups. The research also received coverage in several media outlets including Forbes magazine and Disability News Service.
Reflecting on working with RiDC to deliver this research, Professor Sharon Collard, Research Co-Director, Personal Finance Research Centre, commented:
“It was fantastic to partner with the RiDC team on this important project. They bring skills, knowledge and experience of research with and for disabled people that we simply don’t have.
RiDC’s Research Panel is also a unique resource that meant we could be confident of reaching a wide cross-section of disabled people to understand their different views and experiences of financial wellbeing.
We learned a great deal during the project and would not hesitate to work with RiDC again if the opportunity arose.”
