To love the idea of scrapping all benefits and just giving everyone £500 a month

[DyslexicScientist]

Like Finland are going to do.

Would get rid of all the east that goes on with means testing and would cost about the same.

Would be much fairer as the current system does discriminate against certain demographics.

good luck trying to find somewhere in central London for that rent level.

God, yes. Three Bedrooms Rate:£354.46 per week? That's got to be just notional

Dla/pip is also to help towards the costs of someone being supervised all the time. Everyday costs are covered by other benefits.

It would make sense to have CI with a rate per child. And increase Social Services direct payments for disabled people. Social Services already have to spend money assessing people, so this would not be an increased assessment cost. The direct payments could include a housing element where someone has a real need for particular housing such as an adapted property.

Yes there would be some losers, but a CI would encourage people to work who are currently better off being unemployed as they can only get temporary work.

Those not on benefits would see no change as it would be swallowed back by tax. And it would be much much cheaper to run. It would also benefit people who are currently homeless, or women fleeing DV. Someone homeless may only be getting £57 a week. With £500 a month, there is more financial help to get off the streets.

There would be no lag waiting for benefit entitlement to be assessed and money to be received/

longingforfun - Yes in Central London. Not in outer London.

What about disabled children where there is frequently no social services involvement?

So outer London the rate for a 1 bedroom flat is £760 a month. No you couldn't pay the rent on £500 a month on that as a single person. Only those over 35 would be entitled to the 1 bedroom rate, or a couple. Everyone else has to have a room in a shared house.

It isn't about Social Services involvement. Anyone disabled can apply to Social Services for direct payments. But it only applies to adults. So it would need to include children. So actually the assessment cost would increase to include children.

Direct payments currently only cover employing someone to care. Would an assessment for direct payments cover all the extra costs of being disabled?

Cleaty, people do live in central london you know. And they often claim housing benefit as a single person or couple household living in a private sector self contained one bed flat. I have personal knowledge of this.

Are we giving the dla/pip assessment role to social services?

oh yes, cos nearly £200.00 a WEEK goes on specialist food for allergy sufferer DC

, pullups and medical/disabled friendly stuff for same DC (as lovely government wont provide even though shes entitled to it),

petrol as DC is disabled and cant get around,

any other aids I can manage.

electricity
Gas
water
so called spare room tax for a adapted room for medical supplies
erm....and a million things more.

So OP, you want us penniless and homeless and DC to die of something cheap?

FFS.

absolutely for benefit scroungers and cheats and workshy, but not for the genuine.

oh yes, cos nearly £200.00 a WEEK goes on specialist food for allergy sufferer DC

, pullups and medical/disabled friendly stuff for same DC (as lovely government wont provide even though shes entitled to it),

petrol as DC is disabled and cant get around,

any other aids I can manage.

electricity
Gas
water
so called spare room tax for a adapted room for medical supplies
erm....and a million things more.

So OP, you want us penniless and homeless and DC to die of something cheap?

FFS.

absolutely for benefit scroungers and cheats and workshy, but not for the genuine.

I'm for this idea in principle, but it's unworkable in the UK because the cost of living is too high.

Not sure what the cost of living is in Finland.

Now you're having a pop at the poor, sick disabled, mentally ill, and unemployed.. I trust your next thread will be to slate the rich who swindlke millions in tax evasion. Which incidentally costs us much more than benefits !!!!

^^ THIS>

oops, last posted twice! never mind, maybe the OP can digest it 2nd time around.

OP , daily mail reporter by any chance? katy Hopkins?

No government would bring in a scheme where each child would qualify for CI - the birth rate would rocket

This is the absolute maximum anyone can get in housing benefit. And good luck trying to find somewhere in central London for that rent level.

well, that's assuming your entire income is welfare. If you have your own income, the max is surely different.

People certainly live in central london on housing benefit.

I'm trying to help a homeless friend at the moment.

He gets £108 a week ESA and £19 a week DLA
The cheapest council flats I can find at the moment are £108 a week of which £15 is counted as utilities so will not be covered by housing benefit.

He gets a free bus pass because he is disabled : so can only travel where the buses choose to go - which excludes much of the city.

He can only buy food in quantities that he can carry home in his 5 litre rucksack as he cannot carry anything heavier.

He's been homeless for a couple of months - he sleeps on various people's sofas and floors

He worked for 25 years before becoming disabled.
He'll never work again.

MONEY is not the issue, a bed and a roof are the issue.

Central London is cheap to rent - over 50% is social housing, over 30% in London in total. The difficulty is getting into social housing.

LHA rates don't apply to social housing Carol, they only apply to private tenants claiming for help with their rent.

So those^ Central London LHA rates quoted are amazingly low for what they are supposed to assist with, almost a veiled refusal to help much at all.

caroldecker
Central London is cheap to rent - over 50% is social housing, over 30% in London in total. The difficulty is getting into social housing.

But when a very basic 1 bed Council flat is more than total income NOTHING is cheap

Talk your friend will get HB/LHA in addition to ESA and DLA, though, won't he?

strawberry
He's homeless at the moment so gets nothing.

But yes, when he gets a flat thereby hangs a tale and I'm getting really fed up on his behalf the HB will cover £93 of the £108

so his income will be £112 per week to cover food, clothes, phone, washing, everything

Its an idea which to me sounds nice but unrealistic in this country. Far from reducing the gap between rich and poor i think it would polarise it further
if you couldn't work and that was your only income, it would make sense to move to much cheaper areas of the country. I think you would end up with ghettoisation of areas with the entire population unemployed. You would also have the wealthy areas where mo one could live on that amount so everyone woulds be affluent. We already have that, but i think it would get way worse.

where i live a one bed flat is 1k a month.

I am for the idea of a citizens income but, as explained by many posts in this thread, we would need to sort out our housing first.

No government would bring in a scheme where each child would qualify for CI - the birth rate would rocket

Depends entirely on what level you set it at scoffasdyke. If the adult level was no more than £500, which realistically is what it would have to be in the UK regardless of whether people feel that's enough, a child might get £250. Most children are getting less than that from the state at the moment, but there are some getting more. Currently, if you have two children and no other income you'll get £134 a month in child benefit and about £510 in tax credits. That is, about £340 a month per child not £250. So most people would be getting more, but not everyone.