All-round Budget thread

Or is it called child taxt credit? I can't remember. I mean the one that everyone (used to) get(s).

I for one am not happy to pay another penny in tax. In fact, I'm still rather peeved about the loss of child benefit. So much so, that Ihave just bent over backwards to organise a childcare system of an au pair and a childminder so I can be sure never to offer the coffers another penny of nanny tax.

"Am I alone in thinking that I would, a million times over, rather be in a society that paid a few people who were not entitled, than risked leaving innocent people with no way of surviving?"

Fine if you've got a very large pot of money or are happy to place the burden on an ever decreasing number of people who pay real net taxes. But we haven't/can't, and every fraudulent or even "doubtful" claimant takes away from somebody who might need the money far far more than them.

My Aunt has cerebral palsy caused by a hospital mistake when she was born in the 1940s. She can't walk unaided, use her hands, talk properly, and is doubly incontinent. She gets a pittance from the state. She's never been able to walk in the park, paddle on the beach, have sex, wipe her bottom, or do a million and one other things that we take for granted, and can do without thinking about it even if we are depressed or have a bad back.

Whilst there are many many people with severe and debilitating mental illness, who fully deserve support just as much as those with physical disabilities, there is also a frightening culture or entitlement to disability-related benefits that is almost impossible to challenge, and many many people that I've met in my daily life that I'd like to kick on my Aunt's behalf. It is far too easy to make a technically non-fraudulent, but still dubious claim, and the government is doing exactly the right thing by tightening up.

There is no money?

What about those bombs we've just sent over to Libya? Did Dave and his pals just have a quick whip round?

What about the billions they're earmarking to privatise the NHS?

What about the massive bundle they've put aside to fund 'free schools', so that middle class parents can make sure their precious tots don't have to mix with the scum from the local council estate?

It's a smokescreen love. The money isn't limitless, but the piggy bank isn't entirely empty. It just depends on how you want to spend it.

I think Nigella you may have hit on something there.

Why waste all those millions of NHS funds training up psychologists and psychiatrists, when you can diagnose and prescribe from your armchair?

I'll bet under Dave's Big Society, you'd even do it for free?

Because no one seems to be listening. There is no money. We are horrifyingly broke to the extent that we will not be bailed out by the IMF if we go cap in hand to them. We cannot afford to continue as we are without either massive tax hikes across the board , cuts or both.

Like I say Wubbly, are you happy to have all your taxes raised to pay for it?

Not at all Rhian. I'm with you all the way.

I would have also thought that the very worst thing for depression is to be at home benefit dependant. Isn't poverty and unemployment a major factor in depression?

So how do you propose we find the money to support such a welfare state?
Are you happy to pay more tax? More council tax? More NI? More duty on fuel/alcohol and higher VAT?

Am I alone in thinking that I would, a million times over, rather be in a society that paid a few people who were not entitled, than risked leaving innocent people with no way of surviving?

I've suffered from depression, on and off, for years. Never so bad I actually couldn't work, but for lots of people that's not the case. What's your solution? "Oh sorry, it's too easy to fake your condition, so we'll just leave you to starve"?

I'm not talking about genuine people. Why would you assume I am? I'm talking about people like those I've mentioned above.

Nigella, have you ever suffered with depression? Do you even care how a depressed person might feel reading your blanket dismissal of their legitimacy to benefits?

But you can get it for depression or a bad back, both of which are nigh on impossible to accurately diagnose and dead easy to fake.

In actual fact, DLA is massively underclaimed, by at least 20%. I haven't claimed it because I can't face the process. A lot of very ill people feel the same.

Xenia, Incapacity benefit no longer exists, it been replaced by ESA. You don't get it just because you ask for it, you have to attend a medical examination. Even if you had a hysterectomy just 7 days ago or are on certain types of chemotherapy.

Depression and/or a bad back are where it's at, apparently adamschic.

So if/when I get fed up going into work on my zimmer, because the government keeps telling me I have to wait more years for my pension, and feel I should give my job up to a younger person, I can just start drinking more and declare myself alcoholic, hey that's a great idea.

Talking about fraud is irrelevant. There are too many people claiming too many benefits and we can't afford them. It is that simple.
Labour widened the welfare net so far that even those on 50K were getting them.

A woman I know has depression and can't work, apparently. Must be a funny old form of it because she can go out drinking, do school pick ups and hold down several cash in hand cleaning jobs.

Her partner can't work because he can't get to a job because he can't drive.
I wonder if they come under the 99% of benefit claimants busily seeking any job going?

Thanks for the link. The document defines fraud as "the basic conditions for receipt of benefit, or the rate of benefit in payment, are not being met".

Let's say that the conditions in this case are that you present a signed-off claim form from your doctor.

So, wicked Fred decides he's "got some back pain" because his mates told him that he could claim DLA that way. He goes to the doctor, makes a big fuss and the doctor signs off his claim.

When he then makes his claim to the government, he presents his duly-signed-off form. He's met the conditions for the benefit, so technically this isn't fraud, even though you and I would clearly see it as such.

Maybe I'm completely mistaken, but it seems strange that a benefit that seems so easy to claim fraudulently is subject to such a low fraud level.

I just checked - I meant incapacity benefit - benefit of choice as you get higher sums paid and a vast number claim it for non physical things. Now of course plenty of people have real depression but there are a lot scroungers wrongly claiming it too and it costs us a fortue" it costs £12.5 billion a year and is claimed by 2.5 million people".

I don't know the names of the various benefits but there's one you can claim if you are not working and not well which is higher than the standard unemployment benefit and vast tranches of people have moved over to that one because it's paid at a higher rate than the standard unemployment benefit.

cakeretention It's a figure I've heard a lot as the DWP's own figure for fraud - I've just done a search and found this - on page 8.

sorry, typos. I'll bet this kind of incompetence is rife in the system.

The net is too wide? Not if you're a cancer patient it isn't. The rules of DLA make it almost impossible for anyone going through cancer to claim DLA, unless they are terminal and are expected to die within 6 months.

The coalition have also now changed the rules on ESA to make any cancer patient taking oral chemotheraphy undergo a medical examination before making an award.

In my case, that would mean I could happily claim ESA whilst I had primary breast cancer, but once it's spread to my lungs, I have to have a medical. That's a great use of rescources isn't it?

My friend, diagnosed with breast cancer last year was asked by the DWP to come in for an interview to ensure her claim could continue, despite knowing she'd had to undergo a hysterectomy 7 days previously!

I'm sure that cancer isn't a special case, I'll be this kind of incompetence is rift in the system.

"the fraud rate for DLA is about 0.5%".

How do you know? Given that there are no definitive tests for many complaints such as ME, depression, back pain**, etc, how can we possibly know what the fraud rate is? Not saying that this figure is wrong, just curious to know how it was arrived at.

** I've had lower back pain and sciatica for periods of several months. They were horrible and debilitating. I had x-rays, MRI scans, the works. They couldn't find anything wrong at all. If I'd had a mind to, I could have faked most of it very easily. Eventually it got better own its own. Luckily I work from home and can lie on my back on the floor and tap on a computer suspended above me, so I didn't need any time off, but I could see it being a prime target for fraud.