Fancy cars for disabled people

[LemaxObsessive]

Motability.

I am sick to absolute death of seeing people saying on various threads, that Motability vehicles are “given” to us disabled people “for free”.

PIP is awarded in 2 separate elements.

1. Daily Living (day to day care needs etc)
2. Mobility

Each element is paid at different rates depending on how affected by your disability you are (and yes, medical evidence is required). However, to be eligible for Motability, you need to be getting the highest rate of the Mobility element. This is currently £77.05 per week (which works out at £308.20 per 4 weeks or £333.88 per month).

When you join Motability you agree for the DWP to give Motability that £77.05 per week instead of it being paid to your bank. If you also receive the Daily Living element of PIP then you will still receive that directly.

You ALSO, in most cases, have to pay an advance payment (AP) for the vehicle. The better the vehicle, the higher the AP. You do not get the AP back.
The £77.05 per week pays for the lease of the car, insurance, roadside assistance, tyres & windshield cover. Disabled people in receipt of the highest rate of the PIP mobility element are already exempt from road tax.

With regards to the ‘fancy’ cars such as BMW, Audi & Mercedes, as you can imagine all of these have a whopping great AP in the multiple thousands of pounds; Which as I said, you don’t get back.
The taxpayer is not paying a penny towards these vehicles besides the fact that Motability don’t currently pay VAT which I believe is up for discussion.

I think a really important point to make here is that PIP is categorically not means tested (even millionaires can claim it, provided their health meets the criteria) and is not paid to replace a disabled person’s income! In other words, people do not live off PIP instead of working, it is paid to cover the added costs associated with being disabled. Costs non-disabled people likely have never even considered, such as cleaners when we can’t do it, basic gardening when we can’t do it, extra electricity for when medical equipment is used at home, ready meals when we’re bed-bound, delivery charges for every single thing we buy because click & collect isn't possible, taxis to work because the bus always already has a wheelchair user on it, along with lots of other small but mounting costs we have zero choice but to pay because the alternative isn’t an option for us. The lowest rate of PIP is just £29.20 per week so we’re not talking big money!

Millions of PIP claimants work full time but crucially, couldn’t do so without PIP and in many cases, without Motability!

As I said above, even wealthy people are eligible to claim PIP to cover the added costs associated with their disability and they can, if they receive the highest rate of the Mobility Component of PIP choose to use Motability. If they want to spend £7,999 plus £77.05 per week to lease an Audi Q4 for 3 years then they can but not many do because it’s a lot of money to have nothing to show for it after 3 years.

So no, nobody is being ‘given free BMWs, Audis or Mercedes’ regardless of what’s being said by anyone!

It's because they can't seem to understand forward planning. Trying to stop things is much harder than prevention.

Mental health alone, shouldn't be a reason for PIP. (Some exceptions e.g. hospitalisations). There should be enough care and support from primary health care providers to prevent it getting to that stage. But there's not.

Similarly with SEN in schools. Early intervention can prevent a noticable percentage of children getting to crisis point and needing to be out of school, requiring costly provisions. Not funding the early intervention costs a hell of a lot more in the long run trying to "fix" what shouldn't have gone wrong in the first place.

I didn't realise I was the victim of slavery.

I not only have to drive my non disabled children to two different schools but I also have to cook and clean for them.

Who should I contact to get help?

I agree that sometimes there are good reasons why some get more. But not always and I can only speak specifically of my small county here but sometimes it really does make a difference who you know. Pretty much everyone here is related(Unless you’re a “Townie” like me. and who you know really does make a difference here as does who shouts the loudest and knowing what to put on the paperwork really does make a difference and it shouldn’t be that way. Some carers have absolutely no energy for a constant fight and they are no less deserving of help than those who do or who know all of the tiny social services team and are willing to browbeat them into submission. There seemed to be little consistency in who received disability benefits either when I helped to fill them in. It seemed to depend upon the mood of the assessor and which direction the wind was blowing.

What people aren't taking into account is the small number of people playing the system will still play the system no matter what barriers are put in place its the genuine people that will suffer. Pip is already an incredibly difficult benefit to get hence the low fraud rate. You hear stories all the time of people who are profoundly disabled being turned down. Pip accessors blatantly lying. People having to go to tribunal where 65% of cases are won. I think the biggest issue is why is disability benefit being specifically targeted all the time on mumsnet its 4% of government spending and has the lowest fraud rate. These are some of the most vulnerable people is society. People need to also remember pip is a safety net for us all. I worked full time for 20 years paying tax before needing pip. Anyone can become disabled at anytime usually when you least expect it.

Mental health covers a very wide spectrum from mild anxiety to severe and enduring illness,s such as schizophrenia
A diagnosis has never been enough for PIP its how that condition impacts a person.

@youalright I agree.

That's really not the point of what I was saying though, was it.

If we actually funded MH services properly, there would be a hell of a lot more people who were not disabled by their symptoms. Even more severe mental health conditions like schizophrenia should be managed a lot better (on a population level) than they are at present. Yes, there will still be some people incapacitated by their symptoms, but an awful lot less if they actually got decent treatment.

That would be a lot more productive for the individuals, and for society than just cutting disability benefits and giving them a big FU.

The actual fraud rate isn’t known though. There are not the funds or staffing for the surveillance that would be needed and often it isn’t practical to provide it. Certain countries with disability benefits e.g Sweden do make much more use of surveillance and have found considerably higher rates of fraud than have been reported in the UK and even then they obviously can’t catch every single case so no I don’t believe the figures for a minute. And yes I have filled out many a form in my time and assisted with appeals/mandatory reconsiderations and I know what’s involved but fraud is still entirely possible and it does go on,

But it isn’t just about people who are receiving it fraudulently. There are also a lot of people who apply legitimately and are turned down for no good reason and that should also be looked at.

Exactly this the route cause of these issues are a failing nhs. People becoming disabled or more disabled on waiting lists that can be years long. This is where the government's focus needs to be a fair accessible nhs. We all pay into yet the treatment people recieve based on their postcode is significantly different. I have a range of physical and mental disabilities. I have to travel all over the country to see specialists this costs money (a lot of money) i also have bpd the gold standard treatment for that is dbt which they don't offer where I live so I can't have it.

But that is what I'm saying if you are the sort of person who will happily commit fraud you will commit fraud either way and all that will happen is its made harder for the genuine people.

Realistically though, the vast majority of what councils do is mandated by law.

you may not feel it is logical (and often it isn’t!) but it’s the law.

changing the law takes a lot of time and effort (acts of parliament and such like) and realistically the government choose to focus on changing laws that actually need changing.

there are, in the scheme of things, very few people in the U.K. who have a motability car and are rligible for school transport. It isn’t important to the population (current top concerns are immigration the nhs and the cost of living crisis) and it wouldn’t even save much money.

I think what you don't take into account is that people aren't suffering from a lack of education or empathy. They aren't being misled by a right leaning media anymore than they are being misled by the left leaning media. Many are making judgements based on the statistics and their lives experience which will include what they witness in their own family/friendship groups and their community.

So they see that the estimated number of disabled people in the UK has almost doubled in the past 10 years. They see disability benefit claims spiralling especially for specific groups. They see the broadening of the criteria for an ASD/ADHD diagnosis over the past few decades.

They have friends and family that they see manipulating the system. Many work in roles where they have daily contact with clients that are doing this too.

We have absolutely no idea about the level of fraud for PIP. The DWP has no idea either. There is no sensible way that they could ever carry out the surveillance required on PIP claimants to truly tell that someone's anxiety or bad back is as bad as the claimant suggests. This is the flaw in the system. The 'medical evidence' will always be somewhat dependent on a patient telling the truth for some conditions. It's the nature of the beast but unfortunately is also why people can lie about or exaggerate their symptoms for financial gain. Most people have imperfect physical health and ND traits that impact our lives. There is a massive grey where someone isn't completely NT or healthy but isn't hampered enough by their condition to be deemed disabled. It is these people in the grey area that are essentially being financially incentivised to lean into their difficulties and claim disability benefits as it is a hell of a lot easier than being expected to struggle on with crap health, working long hours with no additional benefits or adjustments.

For disability the net has extended way beyond the most vulnerable to actually include a quarter of the population. This includes people who only just meet the threshold for an ASD/ADHD diagnosis and those that are dyslexic. So basically the disabled include Elon Musk and Richard Branson. Are they really our most vulnerable?

If you accept that the elderly and children are also intrinsically vulnerable then we are bordering on having a population where over 50% of people are deemed the most vulnerable. That is clearly by definition absolute nonsense. We have to be able to differentiate more clearly about those that are genuinely in absolute most need and those that have struggles beyond the average but aren't anywhere near the most vulnerable in society. Otherwise it's obvious that the whole system falls down.

The law needs to change. Placing unfunded legal obligations on local Councils has to stop.

Home to school transport needs to be completely overhauled.

When you are disabled you become very good at acting being well. Nobody knows the full extent of my disabilities or what I go through, what diagnoses I have or what medication i take. They are not there when I haven't been able to get out of bed for a week. They are not there or aware of 90% of appointments i have to go to. They are not there when im admitted to hospital or even aware of it the majority of the time. A friend may see me once a month for an hour or 2 looking great but they haven't seen the reality of what that took to happen.

I don't mean to be rude but you don't speak for all disabled people and a lot of friends and relatives.

I see a lot of my friends and relatives far more than once a month for an hour or two. There is absolutely no way I would be unaware of a hospital stay or if they hadn't been able to get out of bed for a week. Even if I've not seen someone in a while then we will have a good catch up and this would generally include health updates. I have disabled friends and they don't go out of their way to conceal their disability from me. Why on earth would they? I'm sure a small minority of people do this but it isn't normal. Most people need a support network of friends and family to help when they can't get out of bed for a week, especially if they have kids.

I don't know why Mumsnet pretends that we all know so little about our friends and family and that everyone is living secret lives we are completely unaware of? I can only assume it's to undermine our life experiences and make us believe that the quite blatant cases of fraud we know about might actually be legitimate. Why on earth someone would go out of their way though to pretend to be defrauding the system is just bizarre!

I think my family and friends would also say what you just said. They think they know. They dont know

Ok, I don't really know what to say. If you choose to conceal your disability from your friends and family then I guess that's up to you. I think it's a strange decision and not one that most people will or can make. This is why I think it's a bit of a red herring. Nobody will think you are defrauding the benefits system as nobody would suspect you're even claiming disability benefits. You wouldn't come up as an anecdote on MN so it's weird that you are insisting that what you're doing is relevant to these anecdotes.

Many of my disabled relatives and friends rely heavily on their support network out of necessity. They aren't in a position to hide their challenges as they have kids to deal with, jobs to do and simply lack the capacity in some cases to conceal anything effectively.

The point that many gloss over (assuming they've noticed it) is that people claiming PIP (working full time or not) are not exchanging their time for that money.

Work = exchanging time for money ('worker's comp').
Money = used to pay for the tiny slices of life you lead when not working.

So when someone successfully lodges a disability claim to the state AND they're awarded with funds, they are doing absolutely nothing for that money to land into their bank account.

The more people do this, the more work feels pointless in almost every aspect. Why should I get up at 5am every day to sit in an office with people I would never choose to spend time with voluntarily just so I can pay my bills when I can just claim anxiety or depression and get a free car courtesy of the welfare state?

Because I'm honest and have a work ethic. But the work ethic isn't currently aligning with the knowledge that there are people out there laughing at me and treating me like I'm a wage slave or something. Probably because at this point I am a bloody wage slave.

Ok then - put a claim in for depression and anxiety and report back how far you get
It really isn't as easy as you think it will be

This has been spoken about quite a lot on these threads. People know this, the state of the services is a national disaster. Yet not much seems to be happening to redress this.

And so nothing is solved and I continue to work and have a payslip that makes for a depressing read. Maybe I should claim PIP for every time I glance at my payslip.

I really think a journalist should do this. They would have to play the long game though and go to their GP first and complain of anxiety. Try to get referrals and meds. Use information available on the internet to inform any further assessments from professionals. Then after a few months put in a PIP claim completed with assistance from online sources. If rejected then appeal.

I honestly think there would be a very high chance of success.

I don't conceal my disabilities i conceal the severity of my disabilities. When you are disabled its a lifetime thing usually how would you feel if every single time you met a friend they spent the whole time talking to you about the pain they where in about all there struggle they face daily. Being disabled takes over your life and its nice to have them small bits of normality where you don't spend your whole time talking about it. Where you can spend time being "normal". When people leave i can sleep, cry and show pain. Nobody wants to see this side of reality people like to see people well and happy.

It must be though, because they know so many people, with nothing wrong with them, getting the benefit. All they have to do is fill in an e-consult with the GP🙄

A few months 🤣🤣 you wouldn't even be into secondary care by then maybe a few years a few suicide attempts might help for evidence. Your funny. I was denied pip for bpd initially and id been sectioned