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.

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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.

And - regardless of whether each individual claim is allowable how do you get to a point where you can claim for so many individuals at such a small property.

Because the disability benefits system has nothing to do with where you live.

Issues in the home should be flagged by social workers, health visitors, schools etc. They are a social issue.

people can think about more than one thing at a time and its not dismissing the suffering of the children to wonder why the benefits system wasn’t capable of flagging this extremely vulnerable family in some way

There is nothing in the OP’s posts (bar the back tracking ones) that suggest that was the point of the thread. It was purely about the money being too much.

The disability benefits system shouldn’t have to flag a vulnerable family.

And given how vulnerable this family clearly were who exactly would it have flagged too that shouldn’t have already been aware?

The relentless focus on the benefits side is allowing the actual issue to be knocked down in importance.

This is another case of children being let down due to the decimation of the intervention and support services for the vulnerable.

And the only reason people are focussed on the money is because someone managed to intervene before one or more of the children died. That’s the only difference between this case and the other ones where people did focus on the children and the abuse.

My MP claimed £10,000s in benefits to learn a language he already speaks. Is this the sort of benefit that you arguing should not happen?

I don’t know if you’ve heard of the case of the murder of Margaret Fleming. It was the DWP who flagged up to social services that there were extreme concerns based on the benefit application which had been paid out for 19 years after she’d been murdered. I can see your point but if the children didn’t go to school, neighbours didn’t report anything suspicious and nhs staff didn’t see the family then who was supposed to know that there was a problem? The only constant in both cases was the money being paid out. Margaret was last seen alive in 1999, well before this useless government was in power.

Accusing people of being like Hitler because they think a society that can pay out amounts of this magnitude but isn’t

@Shewalksinbeautylikethenight

Please look at the quote that I was responding to and which I quoted in full:
"Are PP saying all of them are disabled, all of them have SN, all of them cannot work and actually if they have another child with a disability they will get even more."
As @Greennetting has very clearly stated, there are only three options if you hold this view - well actually there is a fourth as well.

1. Pay them/their carers/parents a benefit so that they can remain socially integrated into society
2. Pay for them to be looked after in residential care
3. Terminate the lIves of anyone born disabled or who becomes disabled

You have said that you are not prepared to accept option 1. On that basis you are also not prepared to pay for option 2 because it is more expensive than option 1. That leaves ONLY option 3 - terminate the lives of anyone born disabled or who becomes disabled. You could also add to that the option of forcibly sterilising males and females who might carry the "defective genes" that might result in disability / sterilising people with disabilities in case their children "catch" the disability. Of course, the latter option would also be available for those that you consider socially unacceptable - we could throw in those with criminal leaning, the "feckless" and socially useless, and those not intelligent enough to reproduce sensibly.

And you think that you aren't on a slippery slope to eugenics the minute you start trying to make social policy based on one exceptional case? Because you are. This is exactly how Hitler approached eugenics (I assume that you didn't read the links I posted which explained that in some detail and very clearly). He started off with ONE exceptional case and used it as an example to build a social policy that wiped out people with disabilities (and many others, using the same flawed logic, obviously).

So the comparison is very real and very present. You seriously think that it couldn't happen again (despite the fact that is already has in some places)? Or it couldn't happen here? Because that is very dangerous thinking.

Is that aimed at me or @Quveas?

Because if its aimed at Quveas she was responding to a specific post by a specific poster who was not the OP. You seem to be conflating her reaponse as a response to the OPs posts.

The post Quveas was responding to was complaining that if a family has another baby with disabilities they will get more benefits and that should be reviewed (ie we shouldn't pay it more money)

That's people specifically complaining about benefits being paid. Not child abuse, not support, not reviews of the families ability to cope. A review of whether we should pay people with disabilities benefits. Its a disgraceful comment.

Sorry totally typo there, should have said 'pay out' not 'pay it'

If aimed at me, I have not posted this three times and I stand by exactly what I said. I was responding to a specific point that said that we should not be supporting disabled people / more disabled people because it was too expensive. If you won't pay the cost of supporting them in the family, and you won't pay MORE to have the state support them, then that only leaves you with one option. Unless @Shewalksinbeautylikethenight would like to come up with a different one?

As for the OP, they have shifted their ground so frequently in the previous 18 pages that it has probably created a minor earthquake somewhere.

I have consistently said that the issue here is not the benefits, but the neglect and abuse, and conflating the two does no service to anyone. The parents in this case did not abuse their children and animals because they were on benefits. Conversely, people parents who earn a lot of money may neglect or abuse their children. Money is not the issue here. Disability is not the issue here. Abuse / neglect is the issue. If a set of parents have seven children with disabilities (and let's remember that we are making up a load of stuff here because we have almost no actual facts) and spend their time looking after the children well, then £70,000 per year is a bargain. At an estimated £4k per child per month for the state to do that, the cost for 7 children is a stageering £336,000 per year! And actually having seven children is also not the issue - or even very hard to achieve, given that divorced partners could very easily have 7 children between them.

And I have also pointed out on a number of occasions that if you want to ensure or minimis neglect and abuse of children then it is parents - all parents (including other carers of children) - who need to be monitored / checked. Not people on benefits or people with disabilities.

For anyone who bothered to reserach this case past the DM headlines, whilst there is little information currently available until the publishing of the safeguarding review, it is actually the case that the school did raise some concerns. What that means and with whom is not clear yet. But it is true that there are two broken systems in the UK. One is the system of social care - schools, social services, youth services, health services etc., have all been cut to the bone and beyond, so the support isn't there even when issues are flagged.

The other problem is that there are no connections between the information held about children in the many places who are equipeed to notice things, even very small things. We did have a system that could do this. It cost the UK government £224 million to establish. It was scrapped on the brink of implementation. In 2010. It wasn't perfect (nothing is) and there were concerns (although I think they were over-egged), but it had the ability to link all known information from social care, education, police etc into a single file and flag instances where there were multiple concerns being logged for checking. In fact, exactly what people here have been saying they wanted - a system that protects children by alerting people to potential neglect and abuse, no matter who the perpetrators are or where their income comes from. The most vocal people who scuppered it? Parents. It infringed on their rights and their children's rights - supposedly.

Fix parents. Not disabled people or benefit claimants. That is where the problem lies.

@Quveas

What a brilliant post. Thank you.

Thanks. And PS ... there was a reason that I mentioned the date it was scrapped. If you were a newly elected government intending to implement some of the worst austerity measures imaginable, making huge cuts in the very budgets that protect the most vulnerable in society, you might also not want a computer logging the national impacts of that?

Good post @Quveas says exactly what many of us believe. There is no interest in our government for child protection and costly measures they hide behind the small governance line but really it's all about the money.

@Quveas 100% agreement here

quveas I completely agree on so many of your points. Parents are the issue. That is where the responsibility lies. So many times in these cases we see cycles repeating themselves. Cycles where people have been brought up with neglect, cruelty, broken homes etc not understanding how to parent. Not understanding how to be decent members of society. Not capable of giving love, meeting a child’s most basic needs, because it wasn’t given to them. I’m not suggesting this is present in all cases, but it is in the overwhelming majority.

Cycles of poor parenting repeating themselves over and over. I wish I had an answer for it.

@Shewalksinbeautylikethenight I will ask you the same question as I asked the OP.
Should me and my family also be inspected?

Well let's see...
Yes, you are being rude.
Hardly dead because you are still on it, and not answering a single thing you've been challenged about.
We haven't mistaken you for someone else, because we are still waiting for your answers.
I don't much like people expressing views like Hitler.
And that was the worst piss-poor excuse for anything... the government should care as much as they can?

In case you forgot the question... if you agree that people shouldn't get "unaffordable" benefits and it costs more for the state to do the job.. what is your solution, because the person I responded to was very clear about the other option they approved of. I'm waiting to hear yours.

Why would I wish to educate you over DM? I stand by everything I have said to you and others on this thread and have no desire to discuss my views privately with you.

Had you read the many posts over 18 pages here and the many recent lengthy threads about disability awareness and offensive comments, you'd have realised that this was in no way polite. People with disabilities have been repeatedly attacked for having benefits, several times a week. We've been told that we should be grateful for whatever we are "given". Any and all crappy behaviour is ascribed to "they must have a disability". We've asked time after time for the same respect from MNHQ that is routinely accorded to others. Repeatedly we've been told, in one phase or another, that's is our job to educate, that the discriminatory comments are being challenged (by people with disabilities). People with disabilities on this site are ANGRY. "Polite" is condescending. We don't want people to be polite. We want people to recognise us and respect us without reference to our disability. Or even disagree with or hate us, but not because of our disability.

We are fed up of challenging views that belong in no equal society. We are fed up of defending ourselves from ignorant attacks. And yes, some of us are ANGRY. So we don't need polite. We want equality. And we aren't taking it off the threads. We aren't disappearing. This is the battle ground we didn't choose, but I'll be damned if I'll go away quietly.

This

OK - you have the last word. What you said and how you have said it is a matter of record, so people can make up their own minds. I really don't care - I still stand by everything I have said. To you and to everyone else. I will quote whoever I like though, and do so accurately. I did not say you had attacked me so I have no idea where you got that from, although you certainly did say a lot more than you are now claiming.

I would not be able to say with such confidence that there were too many people living in too small a house. The house is actually quite large and detached; and certainly has at least 3 bedrooms. One bedroom for the parents, one for the girls and one for the boys, even if no other space used as a bedroom. That could very easily comply with requirements. If you wish to enter social work you probably need to recognise that what you think is "overcrowding" and necessary family space is not quite the same thing for many poor families. In this case, there appear to have been flags that were not acted upon, but living in too small a house is in no way evidenced. I know a family - friends actually - who have five adults and two children in a three bedroom housing association house, and that house is not, according to any official measure, overcrowded.

I'm out, so feel free to carry on if it matters that much to you. All you are doing is proving the points made that posters on MN are disability deaf and have their own agendas that have nothing to do with listening to people with disabilities (or, in fact, poorer people) about their real lived experiences....

@Shewalksinbeautylikethenight if that counts as overcrowding, presumably you would agree that the reported conditions of many migrants to the Isles also is overcrowding and something ought to be done about it?