John Knight (British lobbyist)

John Knight (b. 1958 - ) is a British disability rights campaigner and leading public policy analyst. Knight’s work on disability rights and public policy stems from his personal experience of disability discrimination. He was born with substantial physical disabilities and brought up in a Barnardo’s children’s home.

Biography

Knight is currently Head of the Policy and Campaigns team at Leonard Cheshire Disability. His career spans the Civil Service (Department of Health (United Kingdom)), Local Government and the voluntary sector. He has been involved in social policy and campaigning and has contributed to a number of national initiatives in the UK. He has consistently campaigned against any reductions in the rate of welfare benefit payments to disabled people and the tightening of eligibility criteria for publicly funded social care services. Knight is also a Commissioner for the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI), a Trustee of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, a Justice of the Peace and a member of the Government’s Board of Management for the Office for Disability Issues (ODI) based in the Department of Work & Pensions.

Knight has held numerous public appointments including serving as a Non-Executive Director for a London Primary Health Care Trust and as a Lay Member of the Independent Tribunals Service adjudicating on Disability Living Allowance Appeals. He was a member of the 2002 Government Review of the role of the Voluntary Sector in Public Service Delivery and subsequently advised the Home Office on voluntary sector policy on issues arising from the review. Knight is a well-known commentator on voluntary sector issues and writes a weekly column for the journal Third Sector. John Knight graduated from Nottingham University in Zoology in 1982 and gained another degree in Political/Social Sciences in 1992 from the Open University. He also holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Voluntary Sector Management in 1996 from the City University Business School (London).Other notable achievements include:

*creating the Voluntary Organisations Disability Group (VODG), an umbrella group of 30 national voluntary sector providers of social care support to disabled people; [http://www.vodg.org.uk/]
*being a founding Commissioner for the Commission for Social Care Inspection; [http://www.csci.org.uk]
*running a campaign that established 2020 as an end date when all rail vehicles have to be accessible to disabled people in the UK. [http://www.leonard-cheshire.org/?lid=1171]

Publications

*Weekly columnist for Third Sector magazine – weekly UK voluntary sector newspaper. [http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/Opinion/Login/660425/]
*"Mind the Gap", 2003, London: Leonard Cheshire. [http://www.lc-uk.org/?lid=3873]
*"Inclusive Citizenship", 2002, London: Leonard Cheshire. [http://www.lc-uk.org/?lid=3873]
*"Committed to inclusion?," 2000, London: Leonard Cheshire. [http://www.lc-uk.org/?lid=3873]
*"Excluding Attitudes", 1999, London: Leonard Cheshire. [http://www.lc-uk.org/?lid=3873]
*Contributor to "An Inclusive Future?", 1999, London: Demos. [http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Aninclusivefuture.pdf]
*"Access Denied", 1998, London: Leonard Cheshire. [http://www.lc-uk.org/?lid=3873]
*Contributor to "Creating a Home from Home: A Guide to residential care standards", 1997, London: Residential Forum. [http://www.residentialforum.com/publications.asp]

Sources and external links

* [http://www.officefordisability.gov.uk/commitment/ The Office for Disability Issues]
* [http://www.csci.org.uk/ The Commission for Social Care Inspection]
* [http://www.lc-uk.org Leonard Cheshire Disability]