No benefits if unemployed for more than a year and other ways Sunak wants ti tackle the Benefits system

[cakeorwine]

This are the headlines - I can see some massive issues here for people - it's easy to say there are job vacancies - but what if they aren't in the area people are and there is no transport to get there. How does that work? I can see a lot of exploitation here.

There's also the other rules here around PIP payments, part time workers etc.

I wonder how much personal experience Sunak has of such things?

This is an outline from the Daily Mail

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13330045/Benefits-axed-year-stop-lifestyle-choice-Prime-Minister.html

12-month rule for unemployed

Tory manifesto plans will see people on the dole have their benefit claims closed after a year unless they can convince Jobcentre staff they are actively looking for work and willing to accept any reasonable job offer.

Personal Independence Payments

Hundreds of thousands of people with anxiety and depression could lose access to payments worth up to £700 a month and instead be offered therapy to help them back to work.

PART-TIME WORKERS

New rules will require part-time workers on Universal Credit to look for more work. Anyone working for less than the equivalent of 18 hours a week on minimum wage will have to show they are actively seeking more hours.

Disability rules

The work capability assessment rules, which govern who is eligible for sickness benefits, will be tightened to require 424,000 with milder mental health conditions to start looking for work.

Sick notes

GPs could be stripped of their role in signing off people as sick and replaced by 'specialist work and health professionals' who will focus on what work people could do with support, such as flexibility to work from home.

Benefit Fraud

Investigators will be handed new powers to tackle benefit fraud, which hit £6.4 billion last year. In future they will have similar powers to those investigating tax fraud, including the ability to make seizures and arrests

If your work colleague is unable to catch public transport because of his disability he can appeal the decision.

Yep he can

However, if our workplace had not been a nice one, and instead had been some of the places I work in, most employers wouldnt sit around waiting for weeks for an employee to be able to return to work again after their appeal had finally been heard

Plus that wasn't really the point of what I was responding to there was it...

I understand your point. Having no public transport where you live is different to being unable to use public transport because of a disability/long term health condition.

its different but similar issues.

the other poster said her DP could no longer drive, he got some of the cost of the cab paid because he has a disability which I agree he should get some help as going to work by a cab is more expensive than driving.

However what about the people in the same area that can’t work because they dont drive or can’t afford to buy or run a car? It’s a viscous circle and poverty is very difficult to to get out of, where is the support for people on the breadline or unemployed to get to work? Yes the job centre can give a public transport pass but what’s if there’s no public transport….

I have no idea but I suppose they have sorted all that out before they accepted the job. DP was driving when he got the job, 2 years later he had to surrender his licence. He applied for ATW and was told that he would only be awarded the 1st 10 miles every day. Had he known that BEFORE he started the job he wouldn't have taken it due to the potential cost increase. He was without a licence for 6 years and sometimes he managed to blag a lift home if someone was heading this way, but not often. Nobody else in the village worked there so a taxi was his only option most of the time.

Yes I agree that lack of public transport is a massive issue and have said so previously on the thread

That still doesn't mean treating disabled people the same as able bodied people and going "well able bodied people have to pay for it so we arent going to cover it all for you" is appropriate either

They can both be issues. But deciding disabled people shouldn't get their transport covered if their disability requires it, because able bodied people have to pay is rather similar to "why should disabled people get benefits when able bodied people have to work"

ETA: your edit to the post after I had read it and responded rather changed the entire point of your post which is a bit off...

Our bus service is only once every hour. During Covid they cut it to once every two hours, yet the essential low paid key workers were still expected to get to work.

Everyone has travel costs, access to work helps with additional costs.

if your work colleague grant was withdrawn it sounds unfair and he needs to complain

We had a multiple times a day bus pre covid

Now we have to phone the council the night before to book the bus to come to the village if we want to use it

So lots of people have stopped using it, which isn't exactly environmentally friendly never mind anything else.

But hey, the whole village should just move to get to work right. I mean there's not enough houses in the town most people round here work in to take us, but we can just live in a caravan (that doesn't exist), above a pub (none have rooms available) or in a house share (which doesn't exisit because it's not the norm in the area despite some people thinking there are houseshares everywhere)

if your work colleague grant was withdrawn it sounds unfair and he needs to complain

Once again that wasn't the point of the response to you in the first place

Everyone has travel costs, access to work helps with additional costs.

If the only way for a disabled person to get to work is a taxi then access to work should cover that cost, or at least the vast majority of that cost, not 10 miles a day which is a tiny amount!!

Now we have to phone the council the night before to book the bus to come to the village if we want to use it

oh how fucking ridiculous

Access to work seems more restrictive than it used to be. I say this through personal experience. It is not the panacea some seem to think it is.

Exactly

It's all very well having regressive policies to push disabled people back into work, but if there isn't support to get them there, if they need it, if that support can be removed at any moment so they risk losing their job if they do get it, and there is no incentive for a workplace to take on a disabled person who might need reasonable adjustments that cost money, where are these jobs going to come from

The biggest driver of disabled people returning to the workforce over the last few years has been remote working. Something the government are against until it suits them.

I’ve just ventured onto several PIP advise fb pages. The admin (pip assessors) are basically showing people how to fleece the benefits system! After witnessing that I’m with the government on this one.

So many fit, healthy, can work but don’t want to work people are jumping on the pip bandwagon. I can’t believe what I’ve just seen! Have a look and you’ll see what is happening and why the govt (Tory and Labour) need to clamp down on benefit fraud.

FOR THE UMPTEENTH FUCKING TIME PIP IS NOT AN OUT OF WORK BENEFIT

So keen to jump on and have a froth about disabled people that you dont even bother to look into it

If you bother to do some research you’ll find able bodies people who are claiming UC and topping up with PIP. Go and look!!

I'm hardly surprised groups have had to be set up to help disabled people jump through the unreasonable hoops the government have set up in order to access PIP

Anything from needing to know what date you are expected to die by, to being told you can work if you make it to the appointment but simultaneously being refused a telephone appointment and sanctioned if you don't make it to the in person appointing

Why wouldn't people need to help each other?

There isn't a PIP bandwagon ffs

Yes agreed. I removed myself from one of these fb sites last week after receiving abuse when I called out people who were giving advice on how to ' lay it on thick' when completing the PIP form and " fill the form out as if it's your worst day ever ". I help people all the time to complete PIP forms honestly and it just infuriates me people are egging each other on like this. I've seen people lie and exaggerate at tribunal as well. Makes me want to just start a different career if I wasn't too old myself ! Most people are genuine but there are some absolute chancers out there too.

That doesnt make PIP an out of work benefit just because a few able bodied people might be trying to claim it. FFS

The majority of those requiring support are not disabled. They want money for nothing. If you take the time to look you’ll see that for yourself.

A few years ago those who won’t work went off sick with a bad back. Perfectly healthy enough to do their home improvements and gardening. Always wore a back brace and walked with a stick once a year when they were called for their board. Then came the MRI scan… which could evidence the reason for genuine back pain … and those who were faking it.

Now we have a nation of those who can’t possibly work because they suffer from depression (which at the moment can’t be proved/disproved). They are usually found spending their time in the pub. The govt has pledged to provide support to get those suffering MH problems back into the workplace to provide for themselves and relieve the pressure from the taxpayer. What’s wrong with that?

Why would anyone prefer to have everyone else supporting them instead of welcoming help to support themselves and have a good quality of life?

Take a look at how many people think there should be no assessment of their needs. Because the govt should rely on their proclamations of “I can’t work. I can’t leave the house. I can’t walk. I don’t eat. Etc.

The benefit system needs a bloody good overhaul.

fill the form out as if it's your worst day ever ".

Yes that's the same advice that Scope and other disability support charities give

Because if you say that you can do something some of the time it will be scored as if you do it all of the time

The issue here is the PIP scoring system and the system it's entirety. It's a scandal and the people defending it are not the ones in the right here. It will be looked back upon far more accurately as a regressive system that's killed people

PIP is based on how you can function on the majority of days. It's fine to describe a worst day and how many days are worst days but you do not write the whole bloody form just based on a worst day ! If you have a worst day once a month it is not going to score you points. No wonder there's so many people claiming it.

If most people are genuine, then why do a significant proportion of people have to go to a tribunal in the first place?

It shouldn't be normal to have to go to court in order to claim money for your disability.

What do you suggest people do on their worst days? Starve? Stay in dirty clothes? Wet themselves? Be trapped in the house? Of course it's relevant to say how bad things can get.

Whatever you need to think to help you sleep at night

I could claim PIP. I choose not to because I earn enough to feel I don't need it.

So my PIP can go to one of those people you have decided on the basis of your opinion, not fact, that they don't need it

Along with the other 23 billion in unclaimed benefits

As for the "less people with a bad back" do you really not think the advent of the MRI which allowed for diagnosis and therfore treatment that wasn't there before, the advances in medical treatment and the reduction in the number of manual jobs might have something to do with that.. Or did you just decided not to think too deeply

Yes it's relevant but you don't fill out the whole form just based on a worst day. If you write each answer based on not being able to leave your bed when in fact that happens for two days a month that isn't accurate. Surely you can see that? You can describe a worst day and then say how many days this applies. The assessors tend to ask anyway so I guess they look at this and the evidence available .

So if it's ok for someone to starve and sit in their own urine two days a month, how many days exactly is unacceptable to you? In your opinion, exactly how long is it someone should be living in undignified and inhumane conditions before you personally would say anything other than tough shit?