BEDROOM TAX related. Letter mentioning Childrens Services. AIBU to think this is appalling.

[Darkesteyes]

Apparently if a parent recieves a letter notifying them of eviction proceedings they will be considered to have caused this situation intentionally and Childrens Services will be notified.
Ive seen at least 3 copies of letters like this on Twitter over the past few days. So

twitter.com/robolollycop/status/397035649460498432/photo/1

I can only conclude that there are far more pompous half wits in the world than I would hope for.

There are something like 2.3 million people unemployed

There are about 1 million on ESA

Are there 3.3 million jobs floating about needing filled? And if so why are so many people going for interview after interview and not getting work?

You can only cut your cloth accordingly if you can afford a pair of scissors in the first place

I heard a fascinating presentation a few weeks back from a professor at Stirling university. She was able to show how when an economic downturn occurs, there's a drastic rise in the numb of people who are lazy, greedy and expect the state to keep them.

Amazing how their being less jobs around seems to happen about the same time as, yknow, less people working. Who would have thought.

Generally there are about 500k job vacancies at any one time.

Utreas, you seem very keen on people cutting their cloth. What do you think of the vice-chair of the Conservative party trousering £300k of taxpayer's money every year for a dodgy 'free' school site? Especially as the people who run it have been inventing fictitious invoices, and the head has been employing several members of his family at public expense without bothering to go through actual recruitment procedures?

That's great when there's 3 million out of work eh?

Also it occurred to me, if the jobs went to people who are already in work but changing posts, in theory no one else might ever get a job, it could just be a constant turn over of the same people already in employment moving posts.

(it won't be but out of 500k vacancies not ALL will go to current jobseekers)

The letter is nothing to do with the bedroom tax. It's just a standard notification letter.

It costs to reform laws, courtesy of the tax payer.

The reforms are purely ideological and do not save the tax payer money in the short or long term.

The government then uses tax payer money to defend their decisions during expensive litigation and they lose.

Iain Duncan Smith and his ineptitude has already cost us millions.

Tell me who the irresponsible feckless wastrels are?

wet, thing is the bedroom tax is causing a spike in rent arrears, so this threatening letter is being sent to a lot of people harmed by the bedroom tax. And it is a threatening letter. It is intended to frighten people into paying up. If it were intended to be factual or helpful it would be phrased very differently.

Edam- If there has been fraud committed in that case then I hope it is dealt with severely.

Thing is, utreas, there's one law for the rich and powerful and another for the poor and vulnerable. The vice-chair of the Tory party is ripping off the public - him and his dodgy 'free' school. Yet he'll get away with it. He won't have to worry about whether he's got a roof over his head. While innocent people who have done nothing wrong are suffering.

I don't think we treat people with difficult lives (illness, disability, children in/people leaving care) - but a healthy adult, living in a house/flat with 3 bedrooms, paid for by others, is not vulnerable.

a 1 bed flat would be the state caring for them very well.

viewing these very different groups as similar is IMO very bad for the future of the welfare state.

"Similarly being out of the workforce for a period so long you struggle to re-enter only highlights what a foolish decision opting out of the labour market is"

'Opting out'????? Like being made redundant?, Like having your contract changed to zero hours and then never getting any work?

You assume that people are unemployed through choice??

You sound brainwashed by the Tories.

My dh is out of the workforce. I must go and yell at him for getting ill and not being able to walk.
We are in a fortunate position in that this does not apply to us. However, were we in a property in which it did apply, his disability would have no bearing on the matter, we would still be threatened with eviction.
Utreas et al. People with disabilities are included in this.
here

Your DH is still able to share a bedroom. Not walking doesn't effect that. So yes, if you relied on HB you should sacrifice the spare room element.

What we have now are adjustment issues. I'm pretty sure in ten years time it'll seem absurd that one person could live in a 3 bed house paid for by the tax payers while families need the room. Yes there will be teething problems, but it'll all come out in the wash.

Actually, he isn't. He has other problems too. One of the reasons he can't walk is because of the constant pain. Spare bedrooms are often used by those with disabilities to house vital equipment, mobile hoists, walking frames, wheelchairs, for example. But as far as you're concerned being unable to walk doesn't affect anything. Rather like the policies, I feel you haven't actually thought this one through.

That post shows bugger all knowledge of issues surrounding the impact of disability.

The group worst affected by the bedroom tax is disabled people. More often than not disabled children.

here

but there is a world of difference between someone with serious disabilities needing space for a hoist, and someone wanting two spare rooms for occasional usage.

also is there any independent information (e.g. university research) on the percentage of disabled people who need extra space due to their disabilities? saying the worst group affected is disabled people could mean disabled people are housed in too large properties for their needs or people who need the space due to their condition.

Well we were given a 4 bed house in April 2012 because the local authority accepted the medical evidence (and we have plenty) that our children cannot share.

The same local authority tried to then make us liable for £31 a week rent because of 'bedroom tax' in April 2013.

So why is our house 'too big' after being medically necessary a year earlier? (And we waited YEARS for this house).

It was only 3 weeks before the tax started that parliament made the concession that if you have the evidence we do you don't have to pay it. After six months of hell working out which therapies to cancel so the kids DLA would have to pay bills we no longer could because we were paying the shortfall from our carers allowance/income support.

I hate to say it but most situations are like ours. Authorities haven't housed people in inappropriate units for quite some time, the space has to be deemed necessary. Apart from extra rooms for disability the second biggest group is pensioners who are in 3 bed homes on their own, and they're exempt.

The number of single people of working age without disability in a house too big for them is really quite small. And even then there's nowhere for them to actually move to.

In our case we had numerous incidences of one child trying to harm another - ie suffocation attempts.

So why is our house 'too big' after being medically necessary a year earlier? (And we waited YEARS for this house).

This is EXACTLY what i meant when i said they are changing the rules retrospectively

At some point I'm going to be hit with the bedroom tax. Stupidly though, even if I downsized within HA accomodation, it would still cost more, because I've lived in this house a lot of years, and a smaller HA home will have a higher rent. So, add that to the list of examples where no money is going to be saved at all. Not to mention I'll be re-entitled to a three bed in a couple of years.

I don't have personal experience of this so I could be wrong, but aren't the people who allocate housing and the people that give out housing benefit two different agencies? If so, that's probably why people were given bigger properties and are then told they can't have the HB to cover all of it.

But I'll say it again, if disability benefits were reflective of the actual cost of disability, then the bedroom tax wouldn't be a problem because people who need an extra room because of disability would have the money to put towards their own rent.