To not understand benefits of £7k a month!

[CoastalWave]

Awful story in the paper today (apologies, Daily Mail! But I'm sure it's in others)

Beyond distressing what has happened to the children (and the dogs) and I'm delighted this pair have been jailed.

But what also stood out, was the comment that they received £7000 a month in benefits.

How?

When my DH lost his job during cover and we only had my part time wage to live on, we were told that £1k a month was absolutely fine for a family of 4 to live on and we were entitled to nothing. Zero. Nada. Out of that £1k a month was our £600 mortgage, £200 council tax, £150 gas/electric etc etc. Basically there was no bloody chance we could live on £1k a month. We lost all of our savings and we're still paying back the debt we accrued now.

How do scumbags like this even just get handed that amount of money per month? And moreover, no one is bloody checking up on them clearly. Those poor children.

link

Can someone please enlighten me as to how these even happens/is allowed? What on earth is £7k benefits made up of? Are all families with 7 kids and not working getting £7k a month because if they are I'm sacking off work and popping out a few more children.

I thought there was a benefit cap to prevent this sort of thing

They will have been getting disability benefits which removes the cap.

It probably includes rent.

Then if they plus one or more of their children qualify for any sort of disability payments than that would boost the entitlement,

£20 per dog is £70k/month for each of the children so it's actually almost £6m a year, a bit more if a leap year

Insanity. That's the equivalent of a £140k wage before tax. It's weird because someone earning £140k (£84k net) would be considered rich on here yet people on benefits getting that much are considered poor and vulnerable. No family should get this much no matter how many kids they have. It's the tax paid of 21 workers on £25k just for one family! No wonder nobody wants to work and productivity is on the floor.

But surely if you're receiving disability benefits, someone is actually checking? I always believed it was a pretty robust system.

How did these kids get missed if that's the case?

Disgraceful.

My point too. Utter insanity. But also how does this much money a month get paid out and no one is checking?!

I"m self employed and earn between £12-15k a year depending how busy i've been. I"m fairly certain at some point the tax man will want to know exactly what i'm doing with my money hence why I keep good accounts as I should. They're quite good on getting tax money out of me upfront.

Yet we hand out nearly half this a month to one family without apparently even checking on the children in the property!

Who's running this shit show?!

Do you think there might be a teeny tiny chance that the Daily Heil is misrepresenting the situation?

But surely if you're receiving disability benefits, someone is actually checking?

Checking what?

They don't come to your house, there is just an assessment when you apply - usually paper based for children and face to face for adults (although most are done by phone just now)

No.

In what way?

They may well be legitimately claiming disability benefits for some or all of their children. But even so I don’t see how that makes it up to £7k. We receive highest rate care and low rate mobility dla for Ds who has complex autism and we receive £467 a month for that and then £67 a week I think it is carers allowance. Even with tax credits added on it won’t be near £7k even multiplied by several children. I think the Daily Fail is having a tug really.

Ahh yes, the Daily Fail aka the worlds most truthful website about benefits, with no agenda at all

oh hold on…

I've had dealings with something similar to this .

Kids near death from starvation but mother could afford pink hair dye and they had tobacco- no food whatsoever in the house . 5 kids . One near death .
And they'll have been getting twice my wage .

Not the kids fault though unfortunately.

Higher rate DLA for daily care and mobility for children is approx £155/week - £680/month.

Rent for a 3 bed in Eastbourne is anything from £1200 to £2200 a month, going by Rightmove.

Here it is being reported in The Telegraph;

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/07/couple-paid-7k-month-benefits-left-children-living-filth-36/

Did anybody read the article?

Judge Stephen Mooney said that Bennett and Brogan had 'frittered away £7,000 a month which should have been spent on the children'.

The £7k a month is a direct quote.

I know a couple who get close to that in benefits, they have 8 children. Both parents claim carers for each other, one has anxiety, the other has adhd. Several of the children have adhd so they get extra for that too. I would not want their life for all the money in the world, their lives are chaos, social services heavily involved, one child in care and they are going to be utterly fucked when the kids all reach 18 and the money dries up.

Well surely if you're giving people £1k a month say in disability, there's someone who goes out to check it's not fraudulent?!

Well surely if you're giving people £1k a month say in disability, there's someone who goes out to check it's not fraudulent?!

No,like is said it is assessed on application and reviewed periodically but no one goes to your house as a matter of course.

As others have said they or the children will be entitled to disability payments - then the benefit cap doesn't apply.

Clearly you'd hope the neglect would have been picked up but maybe the children weren't in school - some of the info seems to say they didn't have various skills you'd expect to be noticed by a school. So maybe they fell though the gap. Awful - but at least none of the children died before the neglect was uncovered.

The quote says frittered away 7k per month, not that the 7k were in benefits. That is the DM interpretation.

I'd be interested in the court transcripts if they cite the source of all the money. Disability benefit is meant to be independent of means testing - its not an out of work benefit so if one or more of the family have disabilities that money would rightly be in addition to any income they have but might well be reported as "benefits".

I've never had anyone come to my home for PIP or ESA claims.