Truly shocked by Tory bank trials for benefit claimants.

I doubt that the amount of tax you are paying is supporting anyone much unless you earn about above £50,000 you are basically being supported by those so called millionaires. I suspect that to be contributing anything you need an income of about £60,000 and then its marginal what your contribution is. in other words, every drink or meal out you have is being subsidised by very high tax payers.

Everyone has to be invested in the tax system for it to work and that is why some things remain universal and that includes DLA for disabled kids that is universal. The tax system is to say that when something catastrophic happens then the state will have your back regardless of your income levels because you have invested in the system.

On your view of things, people with money should have to fund their own discretionary NHS care eg for rounds of fertility treatment - why are you funding millionaires to have that on the NHS?

Moreover if you were to have a serious illness pretty much anything you pay in taxes will definitely not cover the cost of your treatment. Should the tax payer have to fund the cost of say your cancer hospice care when you own a house over a few hundred thousand? Why if you have an asset such as a house? Why should that be funded?

The way that DLA operates is to pay for the cost of things that are not provided by the state but alleviate the cost of the disability. In reality they make up for things that the state should provide but does not.

So for instance if you child has a language disorder in the old days the state would have provided wall to wall language therapy. Now the state rarely provides more than universal therapy for language disorder unless you have a fight. So parents have to try to get private speech therapists to support their kids at £80 her hour.

The same applied to occupational therapy and physiotherapist and the cost is similar. Oddly the more severe the disorder the less inclined to treat.

So kids with delay might get some SALT kids with severe disorder will have limited SALT and be written off

Usually parents are in dispute with the LEA as the LEA try to provide the least provision for the lowest cost - which is a crazy thing because the more is spent at the early stage the more likelihood there is of the child of reaching their full potential. To go to tribunal is hugely expensive. Usually there are the endless supply and need for updating medical evidence. There might also be legal fees and incidental fees to attend.

Heres the thing, The standardised medical reports produced by the NHS are very very brief but can also be quite chilling. They might write one side to let you know that your kid has a severely disordered language or motor issue that puts them into the lowest category. Parents are forced to spend huge amount to understand what is happening and how best to support their kids. They can get more detailed training on how to provide therapy and what aids and equipment to buy.

There are other expenses as well. The parents might not be able to go out without arranging care even when that child is above 14. They have to provide and obtain some for of PA support out of their own pocket every time they have a night off from care. Again legally speaking social care are supposed to do this but they don’t do what they should do under the EHCP plan and inform the plan re any social care needs. So that money is again applied to a failing of the welfare system.

There is also the provision of aids and equipment - this might be slightly better boots than those provided by the OT ( which are battered and fifth hand by the time they come to you) to stop toe walking. This might also be special care cutlery or a weighted blanket which in the old days were provided but not now.
Also those stupid sit cushions etc. parents can spend fortunes on sensory equipment. There are so many disability aids snd gadgets even the toys for toddlers are different to encourage fine motor skills. .

Moreover there might be some learning challenges that parents will try to support with extra tuition eg with say Maths due to poor working memory and language issues. This is not to support their kid to get a better grade but to actually function in society eg recognising that one from 2000 is 1999 at the age of 18. Again if successful this could aid independence and reduce the burden in the state. Also the child most likely can’t access many educational things in a universal setting eg swimming lessons due to hearing issues, physical issues or sensory issues. Some support groups might run things like this or else the parents have to fund 1:1 because the child cannot access school lessons.

The parents might have huge care costs for other kids as they have to visit their child in hospital. They might also have to take and visit their child in a major centre hospital eg London.

Parents might also pay for medical treatment that can have a huge impact but not available here eg to release muscles for CP offered in the UK when the kid is too old. Parents might prefer a better wheel chair than the ugly one provided by the NHS.

There will definitely be higher legal costs as parents need to draw up different types of wills etc. This is far more expensive than standardised.

Personally I refused to claim DLA until my son was really quite old due to some hang up but I was convinced that I should by NHS services precisely because they don’t have the capacity to provide the services that they decades ago.

For many parents having a disabled child is really expensive and the money is applied to treating the child or bettering their potential from low to not quite so low.

This debate is immaterial to me as my son is adult now and his finances are judged on their own merit. However I don’t begrudge the tax we pay combined as a household to other households towards DLA.

That is bollocks though. Of course it helps the parents. Poor people who receive it are spending it all, supporting their children. Rich people may well set up funds, but to me that is not what it is for.

I will gladly pay more tax so people do not go into penury to support a disabled child. But would I so a millionaire, or v high earner can put more onto a pension? Will I fuck!!

Villages with support seems like a good idea. But that can be paid for through adult benefits for adult residents.

Blimey do most of these students not get jobs earning over 26k or whatever they start paying it back at ? My ds and his gf have only been graduated a couple of years and are paying back.

The Government expects that around 27% of full-time undergraduates starting in 2022/23 will repay them in full. They forecast that after the 2022 reforms this would increase to 61% among new students from 2023/24.1 Dec 2023

So 39% of students at best case won’t pay back.

No they don’t - look at the stats. They have them written off eventually

You do realize students pay back both maintenance loans and tuition loans ?? I don't quite understand how you think your taxes are paying for it?

Although I did Just skim read so may have missed the actual findings from the investigation

Among these, approximately 60,000 accounts were in risk of breaching the capital rule (8%)

So it states 8%, were at risk of breaking the rules. And it also states the accounts suspected of breaking the rules.
I'm not sure this sounds like a very thorough case so far ?

The students get the minimum of about £4000 per annum - why should they get that when the exact same parents might want to take away or make challenging universal credit and pip from disabled people! Why are my taxes paying for someone to do have a nice day music tech at some obscure college or American studies etc….? Actually I don’t begrudge this but I do begrudge ongoing war on disability. I can make the same argument to all those parents allowing their kids to pick up the annual £4000 and hitting the pubs.

@Noras if their parents are high earners I'm not sure they get much more than tuition fees paid. If they do the 'I converted my student loan to vodka' thing they're going to find the rest of the term a learning experience.

The money does not help the parents it helps the child. That child might grown and have a lifetime of need. Oddly enough parents are often frantically saving to set up trusts etc so that their kids don’t live on levels that are just about enough to survive. They are abandoning pensions in favour of their kids etc

I would welcome disability villages where they could have their own communities and feel secure. Then the concept of money would not feel so crucial.

In the meantime please tell why I’m funding the kids of people earning above x to do some pretty waste of time university degree courses with loans that will never get repaid! Why that funding so that a bunch of kids can get boozed up.

So all I ask society is to look after my son when I dies and make it at least feel that he is in a safe place.

The saving to the public purse would be miniscule and you'd have the same nonsense as with child benefit. A couple each earning £120k would get it but a SAHM looking after a profoundly disabled child but with a husband on £126k would not.

I can't see any politician signing that one off!!

It would be easy enough, and faur if anyone paying the additional rate tax bracket (so earning over £125,140).

I can see where you're coming from but if you means test it then to be meaningful the cut off would be waaaay below millionaire level.

I know. I just do notthink that the children of millionaires need it.

It’s very easy @Miley1967 and they live in poverty with all these savings. It can also make them very anxious. Some would be better off mentally without the money to be honest. It frightens them. They could use it for cleaners, gardeners, transport, heating costs etc. Make their lives so much easier- that’s what it’s for.

@Noras you can get a local authority appointee in place, but I don’t think they help you spend it as such. They’ll just notify the DWP to cancel benefits for a bit (so they’ll use savings to pay the rent etc) this then quickly eats into savings and brings them back into benefit.

The boy got DLA which is not means tested but depends on needing regular/frequent attention and/or being unable or virtually unable to walk.

I think it is wrong.

When pensioners are already receiving £700 each every four weeks in PIP as this couple were, state pensions and all rent and council tax paid, it is easy to see how savings build up.

Blimey. Easy to see how savings build up?

Yes we have to manage our sons accounts and how have to be scrupulous to remove all his expenditure on a weekly basis. Most of it is itemised via DRE calculations for social care etc but to be frank it’s all becoming a bit labour intensive.

I do wonder how this will be managed when we are dead - the whole finance thing.

I'm an advisor and am very careful to make my clients aware of savings building up. I had one couple recently who were awarded £600 in Pension credit every four weeks ( both disabled) and I could see that unless their spending significantly increased they would soon build up 10k in savings. A lot of people don't even read the letters the DWP sends. When pensioners are already receiving £700 each every four weeks in PIP as this couple were, state pensions and all rent and council tax paid, it is easy to see how savings build up.

Fraud is very prevalent. There are loads of people (mostly pensioners or those saving pip) that just think as pip is disregarded in the calculation they can let it build up. It’s actually very sad as these people are saving for old age, funerals, stair lifts, for when they get old(er). They seem to see benefit as a comfort blanket that might get ripped away. We don’t prosecute them them but they have to pay it back and it’s often more than the capital they had to start!

Of course there are others that take the piss.

I’m a fraud manager LA.

I disagree. I am not prepared to pay taxes to pay beneto someone with more savings than me.

The whole point of savings is to have a cushion. It should be used when things get difficult.

It was a big thing during the pandemic when a lot of people who thought they'd never need means tested benefits found their Help to Buy loans barred them. And then if they withdrew money from HtB they were penalised.

The other gotcha for a lot of them was the need for joint claims. Young people in newly minted coupledom, not yet at the point of joint accounts and all that jazz, found the need to support each other a shock.

Yes agreed but when the government put this 16k cap on savings it means that people who need to claim low income benefits can never save for a house deposit and are trapped with renting for years on end thus costing the government way more in having to help towards rent for years on end. There needs to be something in place to protect savings that are being saved towards a house deposit. It's very short sighted.