Dla requires an awful lot of supporting evidence to successfully claim, from more than one qualified source (medical specialist NOT the old biddy at numer 43). It is acknowledged as being both one of the hardest benefits to claim and as having one of the lowest rates of fraud due to the burden of proof required in order to be eligible.
We are all just a careless driver & a split second from disabilty in our prime, and very few make it to their dotage without experiencing some impairment. I can't believe just how selfish society seems to be becoming, given how vulnerable each and everyone is to the risk of needing assistance at some point. This government is doing nothing less than encourgaing the growth a sociopathic society (one where the individual has no empathy towards others). Money is still being spent on banks and the imperial war machine with impunity, the Olympics and other grandiose displays to impress other nations. The corporate elite pay minimal taxes (boots was just doing what they all do).
If our tax payments & therefore government are not to provide us with a vital saftey net when disaster befalls us, then we need to have a root and branch reform of the whole system of government. We need to reassess what percentage we as citizens need to retain of our earnings and within our own families and communities to insure ourselves against disaster. The ruling elite can then have what we think is left over to pay for their perks and toys. Most people would be able to afford private insurance etc if they paid no tax at all until they reached the average wage bracket, and a minimal amount of tax over that would cover education, the NHS and any service we voted democratically to allow the government to retain control of.
It's especially annoying as the last conservative government consigned whole communities to sickness benefits (not the same as disability benefits) to massage the unemployment figures when they destroyed the mining industry. Now we have a looming energy crisis facing our children but have lost our indigenous key supplier of energy (home produced coal).
Real development of those ex-mining communities into long term sustainable economic areas was too much like hard work, as is the root and branch reform of today's banking industry that is urgently needed.
It's political short termism of the worst kind. Scapegoat the vulnerable and kick the real problems our country down the road to our children to pick up the pieces. ATOS doctors are not as informed as individual's consultants re disablities. Therefore the system being created will eventually favour those who know how to play the system and fake, while the genuine will once again be left to suffer.