The really worrying feature of these stories is that the individuals affected are not the sort of people I am sure most of us had in mind when we thought it was a good idea to overhaul the benefits system. I doubt if there is a single person in the country who would have voted for making life even more difficult for people already on the edge, no matter how big our national debt. What we wanted was less money wasted on management consultants and agency staff, regular rebranding exercises and poorly negotiated contracts, big salaries for people doing rather average jobs.
I am fairly sure that I heard a council leader last week saying that it was perfectly possible to achieve the budget cuts necessary without withdrawing essential frontline services, but it was a lone voice, and obviously completely out of step with the current appetite for stories about suffering and despair. I haven't heard it repeated subsequently, and have failed to Google my way back to it.
We have been promised openness and transparency, a greater say in how various services are delivered, as we graduate from passive recipients to "an army of armchair auditors" holding councils to account. So far, it seems that what we have is business as usual: it is clearly either easier or more politically expedient to make the cuts painful and shocking, rather than approaching them in the way a family would trim its budget – you wouldn't let your children become malnourished or court hypothermia, while you carried on paying for satellite TV. By the end of this month, all councils will have to publish details of any payment to suppliers over £500 on their website. Perhaps that will provide the impetus for a lot more careful thought about how they spend our money.
And in the meantime, we can all let them know what matters to us, like living in a civilised society where people who really need help don't have to fight for it.
Much easier to cut money to family carers, they're probably too exhausted to protest. Pretty short-sighted though, when you think how much more it costs to look after someone in residential care
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree with everything you have written. I am in the process of trying to claim DLA and have been declined in spite of having my GP's full support. I also think that the Councils having to publish their expenditure is brilliant!
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work!
Officials from our local authority have told us they are confident that they will be able to continue to meet their statutory duties. The problem is that some of the services we are used to (short breaks for example) are not statutory.
ReplyDeleteRead about the experiences of a family with a disabled child here: fightbackmum.blogspot.com
It has always occurred to me that these fellow humans in office don’t, can’t and won’t need to stop in this current momentum until the damage becomes very obvious. I am aware the prime minister has had personal experience with disability and my heart has a lot of sympathy but I think it’s a very different case when rely on disability benefits for assistance in easing the already ones difficult life compared to when you have means, specialist options and power to handle the circumstance you and the family find yourself. If we carry on like this we’ll end up with the perfect national balance sheet, the perfect medical facilities but patients unable to access it as they cant afford the cost or aren’t disabled enough. Its surely going to hurt us but sadly not them. Its surely going to hurt us but sadly not them.
ReplyDeleteAlso not good when elderly disabled have housing cuts - we have lost £140 per month on our mortgage interest payment - which could result in having to sell home - and then what - council will have to pay considerably more to house us!!
ReplyDeleteI have Motor Neurone Disease and had enormous difficulty obtaining Disability Allowance.Finally after five months I was given 315.80 Carers Allowance which was, after protestations increase to £58.80.My wife who has to care for me 24/7 (I can't walk) had this withdrawn as after 40 years of hard work she receves a pension and so the Carer's Allowance was withdrawn.
ReplyDeleteHaving,after a major fight for higher rate DLA and ATTENDANCE Allowance.
Now we can just get by and my wife now works for 48 p per hour.Amazing!
And now they want to withdraw that!
GOD SAVE US ALL!
Much as I am not a Jeremy Kyle fan I must agree with his comments this morning to a junkie when he said he 'was on the sick due to depression'. JK said that is what is wrong with this country, we fund people to continue their drug habits when the very people who need the drugs to live get their money taken off them. When will the government get the guts to take the benefits off the people that are just too lazy to work and leave the disabled benefits alone, many of whom would swap places with the junkies to have a choice in the matter of taking drugs any day.
ReplyDeleteHi - Its all such a mess and I really don't believe anyone out there cares! The disabled just don't seem to have a loud enough voice or voting powers! My wife and I (mostly of course my wife)care for our 25 year old daughter, yet like too many others, just when it starts getting harder my wife turned 60, got the pension (that everyone is entitled to for working to 60) and immediately lost the Attendance Allowance - should we say we can no longer care for our daughter and at what point in fact can't we look after her I wonder - meanwhile we do the job for nothing ... and it is a job. My local MP told me "Its the law" .... so change the Law, don't hide behind it!! Any White Knights out there as I'm too tired to bash against this particular brick wall.
ReplyDeleteWe have no voice and will bare the biggest cuts , It's disgusting a government can do this to the vunerable and have no compassion .
ReplyDeleteYou dont see many disabled Bankers or MP's or local government , We need a voice and a champion
Stewart Coniff
One aspect of my benefit is the need to buy petrol to run the car in order to attend hospital appointments - otherwise I would need ambulance transport to get there; which is the cheapest? So many others are in the same boat with transport. I have every sympathy with family carers: they do a superb job without even being acknowledged, how will they continue to cope without financial support? Had I been able I would have liked to be on the protest march but this blog will have to surfice.
ReplyDeleteThis is another diversionary tactic by this Government of national unity! (lol)
ReplyDeleteTypically they find some one or some vulnerable group, who is not is a position to fight back and then they set the media pack on them.
I have never met a disabled person who wanted to be that way.
Life seldom pans out as we plan. Through no fault of their own, for some people life can turn out to be an horrendous nightmare - no one wants to be disabled, but illness, disease or accident can completetly take over their live and that of their family.
We hope that we live in a civilized country. We - society through our government should freely help all disabled people to live fulfilling and satisfying lives.
It seems that disabled people and carers already have to beg for everything, obtaining help is a real struggle.
I feel the government is creating scape goats to turn public opinion away from the real culprits.
The country is in a real mess due to the excessive greed of a small number of city wbankers, allowing other greedy people to millions of pounds of credit with out checking that they can pay it back - hence the credit crunch.
Disabled people did not create this mess, but are an easy target to take some of the flack.
The government is literally kicking people who they think cannot kick back.
A playground bully by any other name.
My wife is not able to kick back, but I can.
Lets all start kicking back.
I've worked full time and been in continuous employment for 34 years, until cancer stopped me. My husband has also worked full time and been in continuous employment for 47 years. My husband has been my Carer for the last 2 years, although he has long-term health conditions too - and at times it's hard to figure out who is caring for who! Unfortunately he will be 65 this year. The loss of the cash received from Carer's Allowance after his birthday will effectively reduce his State Pension by half. We also lost our ten pence per week (yes, 10p) Pension Credit last October, and a small amount of Support for Mortgage Interest, and that meant we also lost most of our Council Tax Benefit.
ReplyDeleteApart from getting a little bit older, nothing about our health or personal circumstances has changed. Yet, over a very short period of time our monthly income from the Govt. will have increased by £476 - but the Govt will also have taken £428 away from us. So 'Happy Birthday Husband'...enjoy your retirement pension present that has been whittled down to just £48 per month! Wonder if it would buy some goalposts? The govt seems to have moved ours!
I have M.S. and also depression. Unfortunately my greatest support, Richmond Fellowship is to close on the 31st March because of cut backs in government funding. The worst thing about mental illness is feeling alone and unsupported. I can only imagine that there will be an increase in suicides!
ReplyDeleteOctober 2008 my partner was paralysed from T 10 down . In the time since the situation has not change but we have now been told that she no longer qualifies for attendance allowance. We are fighting this and filliing in endless forms and providing the same doctor/consultant reports. Paralysed, unable to work, unable to get motability how bad do you need to be. Our only help has come from a small local charity (wheels for martins friends) who rovided a new Ouickie wheelchair and we are now on the commitee to help fund raise.
ReplyDeleteAndrew Langsley is our MP and I hope to make contact soon ,but doubt any good will come of it.
Social services and the NHS problems will never be resolved while help is freely given out to overseas vsitor who have not paid a penny into our system .The EU
ReplyDeletehas so much to answer for. My high powered medical friends at Addenbrookes hospital can easily see where the money is wasted but are powerless to change things. It is only a matter of time before the current system which spend endless money on immigrantes emplodes
the one legged man can buy a automatic car for £500 not have a £35,000 4 wheel drive super car.
ReplyDeletethe other £34,500 would go to help other people.
I completely agree with you. My older sister (29) has been severely affected by ME for the last 14 years, I am 23 so for the majority of my life I have helped my parents to care for her. When I was 10 my Mum was diagnosed with Breast Cancer and sadly passed away in 2008. My Dad, who has Chronic Lymphatic Leukaemia, and I now look after my sister, who has made some improvements but now has fairly life dominating mental health problems.
ReplyDeleteFor our family, my Sister's benefits have been crucial. During the worst periods when she barely slept 4 hours in 48 hours she required constant care, bed pans, spoon feeding and bed bathing not to mention the extreme emotional support that was needed through those dark periods of wondering if there would ever be an end of the hell of being trapped by ME. This meant that my parents could barely work and exploring every type of medical treatment available was expensive.
Now as it looks like my sister will always need support, so it is likely that she will never be able to work, she doesn't have the physical or mental energy and after so many years of being bed bound her skills are slow to develop. In a lot of ways she is a 14 year old girl.
I dread my Dad's condition worsening, obviously for his sake and after going through that with my Mum I feel ill at the thought of experiencing that sadness again. But also, what will happen with my sister? 2 years out of university and working on a social care magazine, will I have to dedicate my life to her? If her benifits are unharmed by cuts, perhaps I will be able to arrange other help. But what if a doctor comes by for a 30 minute assessment and deems her fit to work? Then what? For her sake and for mine?
Actually at the moment being disabled just won't do - you need to be dying.
ReplyDeleteWhen Incapacity Benefit still existed you had to satisfy the PERSONAL CAPABILITY ASSESSMENT, the first of this generation of trial via physical descriptors that totted up points to see whether you were sufficiently impaired to qualify. However two groups were exempt from this process - those who were terminally ill and those who qualified for Higher Rate Care of Disability Living Allowance (which means having proven need for 24hr personal care). The new Employment Support Allowance has restricted the eligibility - and made the dubious 'medical' seldom done by an actual doctor compulsory - and called the new test the WORK CAPABILITY ASSESSMENT. However only those who have an uncontrolled terminal illness that's likely to kill them within six months are now exempt from the process (everyone else will just have to drag their ventilator down to the ATOS office).
The Social Security Advisory Committee reviewed the process and recommended that the government apply the same exemptions to the PCA (ie. the inclusion of people on DLA HRC) to the WCA, but the DWP have refused.
I may be a bit cynical but I wonder whether, when the £500 spending transparancy comes in, will a whole lot of 'Twinning jollies' and such like, will have been carefully accounted as several lots of £499 or less. Will auditors be looking for this sort of thing?
ReplyDeleteI totally agree Frances - I think the whole system is up in the air at the moment and no one quite knows what the end result will be. I'd expect the next couple of years to see some major / dramatic approaches at reducing the debt with front line services and the benefits system being firmly in the firing line. I work closely with various local authorities and govt funded depts and they are all seemingly unaware of what the future holds and how the current changes will all pan out. This in itself isn't unusual but there seems to be a different feeling at the moment - whatever the changes will end up being I'm afraid that I can see them being very permanent this time, which isn't normally the case, and I think there will be alot less out there to help those in need!
ReplyDeleteI can see alot of cases like the ones you mentioned coming up, with there being numerous outrageous stories of people fully entitled to help being placed under undue and unfair distress but what is the real alternative to reducing the obvious debt problems?
We shall all have to wait and see unfortunately.....
Matthew
http://www.inclusion.me.uk
At a time when our rapidly ageing population means that should be re-thinking wholsale the way we empower and care for the elderly and disabled in our society, it is depressing at the very least to watch instead what seems to be a dismantling of those services and protections we do have in place. There is much talk of the Big Society picking up the pieces but noone has yet told us where the funding for that will come from..
ReplyDelete"...you wouldn't let your children become malnourished or court hypothermia, while you carried on paying for satellite TV. By the end of this month, all councils will have to publish details of any payment to suppliers over £500 on their website."
ReplyDeleteHow shockingly true. In this cost cutting world, I do not blame the government, but blame local authorities for behaving like bankers! I'm all right Jack, let's save money by cutting front line services. How can Manchester City Council axe 200,000 jobs and their CEO be paid more than the Prime Minister. It's barking mad!
When will common sense prevail? Are all disabled people going to jump through hoops again and again? The current DLA consultation document terrifies me with its new PIP proposals. Surely better monitoring of DLA awards would weed out incorrect awards instead of replacing the current system entirely?
I have Ataxia & Dystonia together in all four limbs (Ataxic-Dystonic Quadriplegia) and have been deaf since age 16.
ReplyDeleteI am currently still on the old system but I dread the move to ESA and don't know how I will manage. At first I thought I'd be fairly safe but after seeing the stories of the people not getting it or receiving other cuts I'm not so confident.
I thought a progressive condition would come under the same rules as a terminal one? I could walk and speak normally 8 yrs ago before the ataxic symptoms first started and I used to work when I was just deaf.
The DlA thing also worries me they were talking about changing it so you only got it if it was to pay carers. I currently chose to try and manage on my own as long as possible so I can purchase the equipment I need first. It is cheaper to pay a gardener and a cleaner than a full time PA, who probably wouldn't want to do all the gardening or cleaning anyway!!
I had two in the early days when first had to go in chair as my odl flat was not adapted and a real struggle to cope in. Neither of them seemed to like housework and only seemed to want to go shopping, i then also had to pay half towards their activities, food and petrol. Their wages for 16 hours were coming to more than I was getting in DLA care (even with part council funding).
After I got moved into adapted housing and could manage kitchen and bathroom better I terminated my last helpers job to try and save up to get what I needed.
If they change DLA so we can only spend it on carers what about other stuff we need that councils/NHS won't fund... ie mobility scooter (to walk my dog and get over playing fields) Assistive Technology to access my computer so can do banking online and shopping cos it costs me £25 to get a adapted taxi into nearest town!! cheaper to get everything delivered!! They really haven't thought this through.. genuine people are gonna suffer more than the cheats!
Kati - you make some really powerful points, and I can only imagine how worried you must be, with the way the system is changing.
ReplyDeleteIt seems ridiculous that DLA would be changed so that it can only be spent on carers: obviously hasn't been thought through properly, as you say.