TESTS aimed at getting disabled people into work have been slammed as "humiliating and degrading."

Terence Slack, of Prince's Avenue, Astley, suffers a nervous disorder which means he has difficulty maintaining his concentration and has been out of work for the last eight years.

He attended an assessment of his needs by the Placing and Assessment Counselling Team at Bolton Job Centre aimed at helping him back to work.

But he said the tests he was asked to perform were so simple, they were humiliating. He also claims the assessments fail to adequately determine the needs of disabled people.

PACT, which is also responsible for supplying equipment and services to enable disabled people to do their jobs effectively, has also been criticised by Salford Law Centre.

Mr Slack is now trying to liaise with the Law Centre and is hoping to set up a campaign to improve the services and the methods of assessment to suit the needs of the disabled.

He said: "The tasks I was asked to perform were absolutely ridiculous - things like putting shapes into holes. It was so easy a two-year-old could have done it and it was humiliating and degrading.

"It was basically taking the mickey out of disabled people and it does not meet our needs. You can't assess people in one day. It needs to be done over a longer period. I have suggested involving the colleges and using their facilities to do proper assessments over a number of weeks, but they don't want to know."

Salford Law Centre criticised PACT over its treatment of two disabled workers employed by the centre.

In an article published in the journal of the Greater Manchester Coalition for disabled people, the Law Centre complained that PACT had failed to transfer equipment from their workers' old job and faced delays in providing other special equipment.

A spokesman for the Department of employment said: "There has been a review of the PACT services quite recently and something like 2,500 disabled people have been placed in employment.

"The testing process is supervised by occupational therapists and a whole range of things are tested.

"If people have any thoughts on how the tests might be improved, the PACT team is always interested and would take them on board if they thought it would improve it in any way."

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