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.

Poor kids and doggies. I suppose there’s no cap if you’re working but obviously we don’t know the details.

It says they had a mortgage so unless they claimed fraudulently they wouldn't get housing benefit.

It also doesn't say they were unemployed, though it refers to her as an ex dance teacher.

There's something odd about the reporting and I wonder if the kids are all theirs.....as in, were some maybe fostered?

And amazing how many people just don't use the disability money at all and save it and then find themselves falling foul of the savings thresholds for means tested benefits they are also on. I have some service users who regularly keep building up savings of 16k because they don't spent the £150 disability benefits, so they then have to stop claiming their housing benefit until their savings drop back below 16k and then claim again ! No wonder we ar constantly having to help people re-apply.

Not sure why on earth you think benefits claimants don't work as the majority do.

Carers save the government thousands many working 24/7 for the huge sum of £69 per week. The idea that benefit claimants don't work is simply ignorant

Having seven children when you need the state to help in the first place is the problem. Of course the state should even the chances for people with disabilities especially long term conditions. Clearly there needs to be an onus on parents to use their childrens PIP in a way that benefits the child. Maybe that’s the check.
If the family lived on next to nothing then I would think some low level neglect might be expected. There just wouldn’t be the money for decent food, clothes, upkeep of the house. But £7000?

It was in the Telegraph not just the Daily Mail

‘But how the hell can someone not know when the two parents, clearly devoid of any bloody brain cells have managed to put together competent applications for benefits (of whatever kind that might be) which gives them £7k a month.’

I can’t open the Telegraph link so skimmed the DM.

The amount of the benefit for that many people in the family with high needs does not immediately bother me, although it is eye wateringly high, these claimants are far & few between.

Most of the national benefit bill goes to pensioners & people in work.

As many point out, PIP is a notoriously difficult & complex benefit to successfully claim, so I’ll make an assumption that this family had support (e.g. CAB, Adult Social Services etc) to complete the process & see the claims through.

Although the Judge quoted a figure that was ‘wasted’ - so we may assume this is accurate - it may be the total amount of money allocated to the family though benefits, the values of statutory services provided under the Care Act & other provisions.

Yet again, we find that children are abused & neglected beyond belief, inquiries will follow & it’ll be never again.

As the story unfolds, we will likely find that these two deeply inadequate people have been known to social services for many years, obviously they have complex disordered lives affecting all in their orbit.

How the situation can have become so squalid & awful is beyond me. Seemingly the whole family wriggled through the safeguarding net on multiple occasions.

What a weird thread.

This isn’t a story about benefits.

No there shouldn’t be house calls to people claiming benefits - is there for people earning £7k/month ?

I am struggling to understand why there are so many people (presumably people on benefits) calling this a benefits bashing thread. It's not, it's struggling to understand how this can happen.

Surely someone, somewhere should register that any family needing that level of financial help is quite clearly in need of other support (social services, medical) yet there is no facility to pick this up. These children have been totally failed by society yet we frequently read posts on here where social services are called in following a throw away comment by a 7 year old. Something is not adding up somewhere along the line.

Also if we are to believe you when you tell us that it's inordinately difficult to get benefits and it's virtually impossible to live on the little that you get, then every single one of you should be absolutely up in arms about the amount of benefits this family gets because no one family should be entitled to that much in hand outs under any circumstances when you are fighting for a pittance.

Unless of course you are all getting much, much more than you are letting on.

No. It is other papers too.

Atleast if they’re getting plenty of financial support they’ll be considered entirely culpable for the treatment of their children.

There will be no shifting the blame onto poverty and consequently they’ll end up with the sentence they deserve.

Everyone is checked and fradulent disability claims are tiny. But you know why let actual facts get in the way of ignorant sweeping statements.

I could not agree more 👏

I did think how the fuck were they claiming 7K a month then I looked at the state of their disgusting house and thought those poor children. Some people really shouldn't be allowed to have children, to be dragged up like that in that hell hole they should not get their children back

Golly a lot of strong views on this thread.

The children have clearly fallen through the gaps somehow and that is really sad.

Personally I think the financial issue here is not the amount of benefits they received, but the apparent lack of review/oversight on how it was being spent.

I appreciate some people might suggest that's overly intrusive, but if you are getting money from the state for a specific reason(s) I don't think it's unreasonable to ensure it's directed to that purpose.

For example, people in receipt of personal budgets (PB's) for care have to funnel all their payments through a single bank account where spending can be reviewed by the LA to demonstrate it is being directed towards paying for a support worker to come in 3x a day or for respite residential care.

In respect of the £7k, that amount of money will have been assessed to have been required and will have involved multiple benefit entitlements - the make up of which is speculation.

What's absolutely clear is that money was not being used for the purposes it was provided.

Exactly. I don’t believe a word of it.

It's in lots of other news outlet too, not just the DM...

I appreciate some people might suggest that's overly intrusive, but if you are getting money from the state for a specific reason(s) I don't think it's unreasonable to ensure it's directed to that purpose.

The reason is my disability. The purpose is none of anyone's business.

Tell you what, why don’t we provide adequate education and healthcare to disabled children and their families?

You know like schools that will teach them, timely dental treatment, oh and maybe access to fucking ventilators in a pandemic and then we’ll talk about who needs checking up on to see what they’re doing with our countries money.

Honestly you DO NOT just fill out a form and people pour money into your account for years. Enormous numbers of professional reports are required, plus detailed information about what you can and can’t do. It’s a hideous process and for those of us who’s children are never going to “get better” it’s absolutely miserable and soul destroying. You have to repeat the process every five years or so incase your child has miraculously morphed into an able bodied/minded person and nobody has mentioned it. PLEASE stop buying into the idea that disabled people are being given “extra” perks. There are NO perks, it’s dreadful.

Surely the point is that if anyone was to visit it should have been a social worker? Poor kids, such a heartbreaking story of absolute neglect.

‘At different times I have been successful in claiming higher rate DLA for both my children and consequently carers allowance for myself.’

DLA benefit long gone.
PIP is a whole new ball game.
Many who qualified for DLA did not qualify for PIP &/or have had a significant struggle to qualify for PIP let alone at the same rate.

Basic benefits for example a single parent not working with a couple of kids are a pittance, particularly if rent is higher than the local housing allowance. I'm not sure how anyone lives on the amount they give . However, with other elements like disabled child elements and carers elements, an extra element for not being able to work and the benefit cap lifted due to disability then they can be pretty generous and then the actual disability benefit itself paid seperately. Also families that have multiple children before the 2 child cap came into place in 2017 can get child elements of Universal credit or child tax credits for all the kids wheras a couple with 2 toddlers born after 2017 not only get less because the higher child rate is no longer paid, but also would not get child element for more than 2 kids. So the amounts that people get can vary hugely depending on their situation, the ages of their kids, disabilities and the benefit cap.

I appreciate some people might suggest that's overly intrusive, but if you are getting money from the state for a specific reason(s) I don't think it's unreasonable to ensure it's directed to that purpose

I used to know someone who claimed PIP for agoraphobia. One of the PIP descriptors was being unable to leave the house alone.
She never left her house, but spent the money on things to make her house nice, and on hobbies.
Would you say she should have her money stopped, as she was not using it to get out the house?

It is such a slippery slope if you insist people are spending the money they are awarded on specific things. Once the money lands in your bank account, you can use it as you please.

Unless of course you are all getting much, much more than you are letting on.

Did you happen to read any of the comments about the majority of people receiving benefits being in work? Yes, there are plenty of checks on people claiming benefits of various sorts. I don't believe anyone said that this particular familr should or shouodn't have got whatever payments they received because nobody here knows whether the figure is accurate or what it is made up of. But there has been no suggestion anywhere that the payments were fraudulently claimed, so unless you want to argue that benefits are way, way too much money, then your point is irrelevant. Whatever happened here, it has nothing at all to do with benefits in reality. Or was that "if we are to believe you" a suggestion that we are lying when we say benefits are not easy to obtain?

Well said.

This thread is goady, ignorant and ableist. The OPs comments are disgusting.