As part of the Edinburgh Art Festival, Artlink launches Scott vs Demons, a comic which takes a satirical look at the bureaucratic mistreatment of vulnerable people with chronic ill health and disabilities. The comic takes as its starting point the experience of Scott Davidson, a young man with autism, and goes on a flight of fantasy where we get to experience the Personal Independence Payments (PIP) assessment process for the ridiculous farce it is.

In these difficult times we can become come desensitised, unable to take in just what austerity measures mean to vulnerable disabled people. Artlink, as an arts and disability organisation, have witnessed the distress caused by PIP assessments and decided the best tools we have at our disposal to highlight this are art and humour. To expose the quite frankly absurd assessment process Artlink commissioned writer Alan Grant and artist Robin Smith, under the direction of Scott Davidson to explore the process and hopefully make people start to talk about its impact. Scott vs Demons is the second comic made by the team. In it they parody the PIP assessment questionnaire, use a ‘rat-zappa’ to remove the demons of red tape and Scott shifts from victim of an assessment process that has little understanding of his disabilities and its impact on his day to say life, to an action hero fighting social and political injustice.

“The Department for Work and Pensions has told its disability benefits assessors to discriminate against people with mental health conditions compared to those with physical problems. New guidelines from the department to assessors for the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) benefit appear to explicitly single out those with mental health conditions who suffer identical impacts as those with physical conditions.”
Jon Stone – Political Correspondent, Independent, March 2017

Personal Independence Payment (abbreviated to PIP and usually pronounced as one word) is a welfare benefit in the United Kingdom that is intended to help with the extra costs of living with a long-term health condition or a disability. PIP was introduced by the Welfare Reform Act 2012. In response to the austerity agenda it aimed to cut spending on benefits by 20%; instead costs have risen. In response, new rules were introduced in 2017 which, many charities say, has left vulnerable disabled people without support. The whole system needs urgent improvement if it is to accurately assess the support that people need. Charities that represent mental health and learning disability groups claim that people with these conditions are being negatively affected as current assessments do not recognise that these conditions are as severe as other impairments.

The Social Security (Scotland) Bill was introduced by the Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities, Angela Constance MSP on 20 June 2017. The main purpose of the Bill is to pass control of a number of social security benefits from the UK Government to the Scottish Government. The Social Security Committee is the lead Committee scrutinising the legislation and will begin taking evidence on the Bill at Stage 1 in September 2017. The Committee has issued a call for views on the Bill; the deadline for submissions is Wednesday 23rd August 2017.

Artlink is an arts and disability organisation established in 1984. Artlink believes participation in the arts has an important role to play in realising personal and social change. Their aim is to increase opportunities to take part in the arts for those who experience disadvantage or disability in the East of Scotland. The individual is central to all thei work; they inform what the organization does and how they do it. For more information visit http://www.artlinkedinburgh.co.uk. Scott Versus Demons is part of a series of publications commissioned by Artlink.

Comics are available through Artlink, and are priced at £2.99 or can be downloaded from http://www.artlinkedinburgh.bigcartel.com for £1.50. Comics will be on sale at various comic and book retailers as well as online.