So they want to replace PIP/DLA money with vouchers?

[moneyinthebinthatsmrtim]

I don't understand it. It is really worrying me.

This payment helps pay for so many things. I doubt these vouchers would cover that, or give the freedom to shop or buy from where you want or need to.

I included DLA because it's really just the child's version of PIP. Eventually, my profoundly disabled child will be an adult and will have to be on PIP

Is there really any truth in this? I can't see any articles directly quoting Labour or Conservative. I might just be in such a worry that I have missed that bit

Apologies if there is another thread on this too. I am happy to get this one taken off if that's the case

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pip-disability-benefits-plan-rishi-government-critics-b2537209.html

This has been worrying me as well. I receive PIP and it is such a massive help with my living costs,I would struggle to manage on ESA alone. It is the difference between existing and actually living. And I agree with a previous poster,it flies in the face of the word 'independence',as in Personal Independence Payment. They want us to have independence,but hey,not too much. Don't get above yourself now.

It's not "compensation", it's helping with the fact that life is literally more expensive when you are disabled. It's a reasonable adjustment, just like ramps and accessible toilets are.

@MaryMaryVeryContrary
I think a certain level of expenses should just be absorbed by the individual.

Cue hysterical laughter in The Inebriati household.

A disabled mother using PIP to send her kids to clubs supports that disabled mother.

This is an interesting study from some EU countries on different funding models, including vouchers: https://easpd.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/EAS_007-21_Study_on_funding_v2.pdf

They do not work well and are not particularly successful.

That already happens, even after getting a PIP award.

You are demonstrating astonishing levels of privilege and ignorance here.

Well with the new system anyone not using PIP for it’s intended purpose will have to prove that.

I know of some of the Scandinavian countries but I just picked this up from a quick Google…..so worth looking at the Green Paper for everything

How about just trusting disabled people to spend their money appropriately, like how everyone else is trusted to spend money appropriately?

Tell me that you think that disabled people are all either frauds or too thick to make their own spending decisions without telling me that you think that disabled people are all either frauds or too thick to make their own spending decisions.

The current PM admitted that the aim is simply to reduce payments.

Let’s be honest. It’s not about being more efficient or avoiding excesses.
It’s about cost and reducing what they give to people with disabilities. As it always has been.

But everyone's circumstances are different not every disabled or person with illness needs are the same do you expect everyone to do individual accounts of how they spend their money ?

Privilege? I’m chronically ill and have a degenerative eye condition

The real problem is the dog in a manger attitude that you've learned to feel about those awful people who claim benefits.
Learn to deal with your own resentment and you'll find many of these problems magically disappear.

Yes the aim is to not give money to disabled people that's what .the assessment aims are.

@IAmNotASheep i can talk about France.

The system is atrocious and many disabled people don’t get any support.
You have to be assessed by a doctor. Some good and bad sides to that.
But more to the point the help,they are giving is NOT about compensation fir the increased daily cost of being disabled - like heating or ready meals.

It’s about adaptations - a wheelchair, an adapted bathroom, compression socks, etc etc…. Stuff that you wouldn’t get here from social services/NHS

But most ramps in people's homes are put in free by local authorities and are one off costs. This is part of what what the consultation is trying to address - how much are one off costs and whether they are met by other services and whether ongoing payments are justified for years on end for things like this. Currently there is no accountability for what the money is being used on. I'm not saying that there should be but I think this is what the consultation is looking into. If someone needs a taxi three times a week because mobility is poor then fair enough or they are needing a motorbility vehicle to keep them independent then clearly that's justifiable. It would be virtually impossible to evaluate who has one off costs or ongoing costs though.

For the umpteenth time, your family member is using it to help herself, as has been explained to you, which you continue to ignore. Also nobody knows what the incoming Government is going to do about the current system of PIP. Every thing being mooted at the moment is just hearsay, and not worth getting worried about.

For someone who claims to be disabled, you sound really dismissive about people's concerns. You can't grasp that being disabled is expensive or why some of us have to pay our parents to help us.

MaidOfAle didn't say that people are using PIP to put in ramps.

She made the reasonable and correct point that PIP is a reasonable adjustment, in the same way that a ramp is a reasonable adjustment.

It would be virtually impossible to evaluate who has one off costs or ongoing costs though.

@Miley1967 which is one of the reasons why the voucher idea is a bad one.

It's performative suffering. This is the worst kind of kicking down - the idea that because I suffer, so must everyone else, and the idea that because I cope, so can everyone else. There's a huge inability to think critically and realise that people are all individuals with different circumstances and different needs.

I'm currently under Access For Work. AFW aims to help disabled people get and keep jobs by funding workplace adjustments. There's a catalogue of items and services that will be funded and your assessor makes a list of things out of that catalogue for you and you can't go off-list.

If your condition changes and your needs change, you have to be reassessed, incurring a delay to getting the provision that you need. If you are newly-diagnosed and still figuring out what your needs are and you miss something during your assessment that you later realise that you need, you have to be reassessed.

One of the things that is not in the catalogue is a voucher to buy extra annual leave under my employer's leave purchase scheme. I'm currently off sick with stress and suicidal depression because my workload and being poorly managed with many conflicting demands on top of being autistic is more than I can cope with right now. A voucher to buy annual leave might have stopped me from getting quite this ill, but it's not offered.

Rolling out a similarly-inflexible system to PIP will kill people and make their lives needlessly harsh because they will not be able to get the support that they actually need.

This is about making the system more effective for those that need it.
If it was working there would be no need for an overhaul but in the long term with rising numbers of people suffering and needing support the current system needs re addressing. I assume you’ve seen estimates of future figures.
If people need support they will get it, the new system would simply require proof.

There’s nothing wrong with providing proof, people have to do it that own businesses to offset expenses for tax purposes or capital gains on property.

No one should be exempt.

Disabled students allowance works similar - they have a catalogue to order from. But it would save so much money to go down to PC World and buy a laptop and other equipment there. (I am aware they don't sell specialist disability software, etc)

Several years ago, disabled people with mental health conditions were put in charge of budgets for their occupational health needs; the end result was many local services closing because people were too scared to spend their budget at the start of the financial year in case they needed more intensive help later on.

This was an entirely predictable consequence and if service users had been consulted about the change, they would have warned about it.

This scheme is no different. You've got service users warning you its an ideological change, its not for the benefit of claimants, and its open to abuse.