How is austerity affecting you?

I voted lib dems because labour won't win here. They are the ones keeping the Tories from the worst acts in the last five years. Like the human rights act.

timetodrive I'm in Hampshire too and in a Tory area. It's a total bubble here so I can see why people can't see how the cuts affect the vulnerable. We are looking at family homes around £400k. (Standard nothing fancy type). And they are going within a week! The viewings are back to back and I can see all my competitions are same as us. Young families with babies, preschoolers and at most young primary school aged children. Plenty of people have money it seems.

My sector is very hot with huge skills shortages. Pay is rising rapidly.

I think the recovery has been very uneven. Those who are better off are not getting any pain. I mean if you aren't getting benefits you won't feel the cut will you? We aren't in it all together at all.

I work in NHS and its on the brink of financial collapse. We're expected to keep expanding services offered for growing numbers of people with no budget increase and PFI payments crippling the system. When we are allowed to recruit we can't get anyone to apply for jobs so we have unfilled professional posts. Pay hang kept up with inflation for years and increased pension contributions to get less. Lost CB.
The roads need resurfacing desperately and there is litter everywhere. All non essential community services are closed. Many poorer towns are full of charity and pound shops.
The well off people I know are richer than they have ever been!

"the charities are helping to make the shortfall again due to the private sector."

I'm on the board of a local (to me not you) charity...they're struggling too, lots of support services were being provided by charities because it was cheaper and more efficient to fund a third sector organisation than to use public services to do it.

But they've cut funding to those too.

This year we've had to make staff redundant to try and save the frontline services provided...next year?....

I am originally from the north west and the cuts seem so much more extreme but I believe that is because it is an area reliant on public sector work and so effects all business whereas living in hampshire the cuts and pay freeze are visible but work in the private sector supports the community and money is still flowing (slower but still there). Services for my disabled child have risen in cost but there is still some respite available and the charities are helping to make the shortfall again due to the private sector.

Husband has had 20% pay cut over last 4 years as he works for a company with a govt contract which keeps getting cut. Holding on to job by skin of teeth. Waiting for the next cut .

Cuts to children's psychological support locally have affected me. My son is not being supported as he was before.

Cuts to the amount of funding a local education authority gives towards a child with a Statement, the school now has to fund a much larger chunk so it comes directly from the school budget. This impacts upon my son and every other child with a Statement of SEN.

I now pay a small amount a month towards my council tax, I personally am happy to do so as we all benefit from the services this provides. I only have one child though and I guess this contribution must be harder for bigger families.

Cuts to local services mean there is less support locally so I have started a support group for other parents in my circumstances...we started with five parents and now have over fifty.

Otherwise I am unaffected, I get nothing near the benefits cap, am in the right size housing so no bedroom tax etc.

Looking forward to the day I can go back to work though.

OP - what's your response to all this? I'm not asking in a challenging way. I'm just very interested. My friend & I have spent the last year or so saying 'people have no idea what's happening'. And I can see why - if I just had ds2 & ds3 I'm not sure I'd realise what was happening.

Cameron's rhetoric in 2010 was: 'there's not enough money. So we'll take from the scroungers & give to those who 'deserve' to be looked after (such as the severely disabled).

That's not what's happened at all. Those who are the most severely disabled (such as my son) are often very expensive to provide services for. So if you're sat in the council having to make cuts - what do you do? Cut something affecting many, or just remove services to expensive people (as that only affects a few).

The Human Rights Act is a powerful piece of legislation protecting the vulnerable. For example it protects those with disabilities from service cuts by imposing certain Duties on councils. If you want to help please write to your MP (especially if they're a Tory) and ask them to vote against getting rid of the Human Rights Act.

I have a severely disabled DS but we've been lucky not to be affected too much by the cuts - well 'lucky' in that his disabilities are so severe that he can't go to a local school so is sent to a residential school run by a disability charity. The school provides almost all services for him and they aren't cutting back on services as they charge the council a lot so he is provided with everything he needs through school, including respite and medical/mental health services.

I was a single parent and carer for him when the coalition took power but I remarried a few years ago and DH is a very high earner. My tax credits, child benefit and housing benefit have gone but I'm now a joint property owner and we can manage without any state support, though I still get Carers Allowance. I have some health issues but DH has private healthcare with his job so I've been getting everything I need. He's had significant promotions and payrises in the past few years (private sector in a thriving industry).

Locally I don't see general public services suffering, but we live in London and parks, public transport and libraries are well funded here. I know there are cutbacks but they are generally things which don't affect our family.

Agree with Hestershaw that the cuts have become as much ideological as they are economic. We've hardly been affected at all as a household - DP is on a pretty decent private sector salary and we're sufficiently comfortably off not to have to worry about the basics like food and utilities. I consider myself incredibly lucky.

However, austerity has disproportionately affected those who are least able to bear it.Working in education and living in London, I see its effects on a daily basis, and as a result could never bring myself to vote Tory, even though we'd probably be a bit less well off under Labour. Schools are being run on a shoestring - teachers propping up the system by purchasing their own resources. Many of the ancillary staff - Ed Psychs, Speech and Language Professionals, school counsellors etc - have already been made redundant, and I'm beginning to hear of teaching jobs disappearing too. Mental health services, especially those for children and young people, have been cut to the bone, resulting in extremely long waiting times as a the few remaining services are swamped.

Cuts to social care mean that my 100-year-old grandmother, who has severe late-stage Alzheimer's, had to wait almost a year for a psychiatric assessment to determine whether she would qualify for any financial help (she didn't). Several other elderly acquaintances had their home care allocation dramatically cut, which means they only get to shower once a week and are regularly put to bed at 6pm by a carer who is so overstretched that they only have 10 minutes to do the job before rushing off to their next 'client'.

As someone who's passionate about literacy, it also angers me that my borough's dozen or so libraries have now been reduced to three 'digital hubs'. Our local foodbank, which we donate to, is overrun. I suspect the situation will worsen once the next round of cuts kicks in.

I haven't had a pay rise for 11 years. Work continues to get harder and harder, a few people are now saying the work is "impossible" because far too much is expected of us. Quite a few people I know are really terrified of losing jobs and are suffering stress. Financially most people I know are much worse off. Nobody seems to smile much anymore. I feel very sad about the next 5 years. If I lived in London or I was a middle or high income earner I might feel differently, but I'd still feel sad for all those having a really tough time. Some people love it that others are suffering, shame on them.

Hestershaw - quite agree. Austerity is about ideological conservatism . Unfortunately everything that is being broken up will be fairly unfixable in 5 years time.

I also forgot to mention that the smaller town is full of charity shops, pound shops and pawn brokers now.

Luckily we have not been affected personally as yet.

I have seen that our local children's centre has been merged with two other children's centre and has started charging for playgroups and also there are less playgroups available than before.

Local bus services have been cut in the evenings and weekend as they were partly funded by the council I believe.

We live between two towns and one town has had their maternity department closed and various other departments, so residents of the town have to travel to the other town instead.

I have been reinterviwed for my own job for 3 years running.

I have lost 13 colleagues to redundancy meaning 7 of us are doing the job of 20 people.

I'm paid to work 18.5 hours but actually work around 30 with no recompense.

I haven't had a pay rise in 4 years.

But owllady, I understand as I had a disabled son

Owllady: you ought to be ashamed of yourself

Give up my job for 24/7 care
Incontinence products are for my severely disabled child, something should was made a point of at the 2010 election through mumsnet and riven
Nothing has changed for people like us, it's got a lot, lot worse

I think for most people, the time they will notice the cuts is when something goes wrong - when they need the NHS, when their child needs mental health services, when their DPs have dementia and they need respite services.

This goes back to January, but in the last FT annual survey of economists there was a question on austerity, and out of 87 respondents, only 19 definitely thought the incoming govt. would stick to the planned cuts.

If you're interested, it's really worth scrolling down and reading the individual responses - bar Patrick Minford, (who was the cheerleader for the failed monetarist experiment in the early 1980s) very few of them are strongly in favour of hardcore austerity. Most are anti, neutral, or only weakly pro.

I have had to give up to care full time for a severely disabled child
Our care package was cut to zero for three years!
Child benefit has gone even though my h earns just above the threshold
I've had NO that's NONE , incontinence products for almost a year
Medicine (prescribed is harder to get hold of)

Neither of my NT children have been affected by the cuts

I imagine it will only get worse for those most vulnerable in society. It's no surprise to me

Local services cut the bone.

I am a teacher and I think the cuts are clear. Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services have been cut back horrendously and the issues we are having to deal with in schools are so severe - but the poor students are having to wait far too long for help.

Parents are in more insecure jobs which has an impact on their children.

Funding for schools is cut to the bone, teachers are leaving the profession (40% more last year than the year before, when in a recession normally people who are qualified teachers but may be doing something else, come back into teaching when they lose their other jobs). There is a crisis in staffing in schools.

I lost my job, my company could not afford to keep me on. The company's main customers were schools, but with school budgets being slashed, company profits have dropped significantly.

They've cut their workforce by about 2/3

Our A&E is closing, schools are filling up where previously smaller classes, more shops closing in town.
We live in a pretty poor area really so most services are charitable with volunteers.

Personally, we are ok but not sure how much longer the tax credits will continue. Hoping gov won't scrap the award scheme for dds school, it isn't likely.