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.

Dla still exists for kids I claim for my son

It's in The Telegraph and The Times....does every paper lie when it's a story you don't like.

Many people know families raking it in through wringing the benefit system-may not to this newsworthy extent but still raking in more than the poor saps who trudge off every morning to make the minimum wage.

How do you like those apples?

Can't give links due to the job that I do but it's not £15 Billion unclaimed, if everyone on here worked in benefits and saw BOTH sides you would be shocked to the core.

So you didn’t have to disclose any of the medical details of those involved with the family?

I know I had to both in the initial claim and subsequent reviews.

Of course you can decline your consent to obtain further info, but this is requires even more info from the claimant.

The only time I was aware that my gp had been contacted was during an assessment and that person had concerns about my mh and wanted to contact my GP urgently. Then when my gp and subsequent mh person called they mentioned the reason for the call.

Photos are page 6 of 24 that gives you details about what you need to send when doing the award review

page 9 of 24 asks for a medical person contact details. And for up to date medical info I also fill in page 19 of 24 with contact details of the various consultants involved.

Reviews are currently taking around a year. Normally 6 months before the end of the claim.

so every single person who claims child benefit, universal credit and disability benefits should be made to explain their spending or just the disability benefit claimants?

Personal budgets are given for specific reasons - to buy outside support - how are you suggesting people should prove they use other benefits which are just given toward the extra costs of living with disability?

For example how do I prove that some of my DD’s DLA goes toward extra electric to have our house considerably warmer than it was previously?

Who will decide if a disabled person spending their money on pre-chopped vegetables, for example, is an acceptable use?

The money in this case wasn’t being used appropriately because the parents were abusive. Not because people get too much. Because they were abusive.

Sadly this thread has almost certainly been started as part of a propaganda campaign to soften up the general public for this:

www.gov.uk/government/news/new-benefit-counter-fraud-plan-set-to-save-taxpayer-2-billion

"The new plan sets out how DWP officers will be given powers to undertake arrests, execute warrants, conduct searches and seize evidence"

And believe me, they won't just be concentrating on "the most serious cases". This will become yet another way for the derelict State to hide its own shortcomings by increasing pressure on chronically and terminally ill people and the disabled population. Visits and searches will be random, in effect, and they can justify them any way they like because they won't be challenged effectively, just as the work capability and PIP. assessments haven't been for over a decade now, ruining many lives with impunity.

OP, you have found your tribe. But let's face it, you knew that already

Why don’t they claim benefits too then? I have a feeling it’s because it’s actually not that easy to fraudulently claim after all.

It’s very difficult too sometimes to actually show where the moneys gone. Yes things like private therapy , swimming lessons etc you can show receipts for but what if the dla goes towards the electric bill as you have to do extra washing and drying as your child soils their bed and smears …..what if you have to buy extra or specialist foods so your weekly food shop is more - are we really at a point where we expect disabled people or those caring for disabled people who have enough on their plate already to be doing a monthly audit of their spending to make sure they aren’t misappropriating their dla/pip ?????

I know no one who’s disabled child’s extra expenses cost less than their dla

‘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’

Nasty.

Without links it’s just a random spouting unprovable stuff.

it’s no more worthy of heeding than me saying “well actually I can’t prove it because work, but it’s actually £90 billion unclaimed”

Unfortunately benefits for the genuinely disabled are hard to get. There are however, people who know what to say and how to play the system to get certain benefits. I can count at least 2 people in my own family with questionable depression/anxiety and 1 with a bad back (who only last week was up a ladder cleaning out his guttering and is regularly doing quite intensive gardening which I would struggle to do and I have done something to my back at the moment), all of whom are on disability benefits for said ailments.

It's a sad state of affairs and I really feel for genuinely disabled people who can't work yet are refused disability benefits.

Completely agree with this and I say that as someone who deals with benefit claimants every day. It is shocking.

No they don’t.

They may think they do, but they don’t.

Surely it's dependant on what the disability is?

Don't talk shite.
A single person with a mortgage and with no children will find it pretty hard to claim Jack Shit.

Were this pair a pair of wizards then that pulled the wool over a system so difficult to navigate.

I cannot believe there are people performing Houdini like moves to try and justify paying out £7000 a month to any benefit claimant.
Give over!

I don’t think my sons actual extra expenses are more than the dla we get, we get middle rate care and low mobility. He is autistic and at a special school so is quite high maintenance time wise and I’m also on high alert so it’s mentally quite draining but actual expenses I pay out that are over and above an nt child, other than when i paid for private play therapy are less than the dla

Chances are with 7 children they will still be on legacy benefits, the youngest child was 4, so it may be that 4 or 5 were born before the 3rd child rule (I claim child tax credit for all 3 children). I presume the mortgage is perhaps a mistake, local housing allowance in Brighton and Hove is £390 a week, so that would quickly mount up over a year and then child benefit. Those two alone would be over £2000 a month.
Child tax credits, out of work benefits, disability payments and it would soon add up.

As for home checks, they can't even get the qualified professionals to do the initial PIP assessments (either do it and realise quickly it is shit, or would never ever do it because they already know it is a shitty job) how on earth would they get enough to do home checks as well?

The amount you get is dependent on how your disability impacts your life. So yes sort of dependent on the disability. I know lots of disabled people because my child is disabled and because his needs are quite high he has been to special school, and clubs etc that are specifically for disabled people. So as I say I know lots of disabled families and I don’t know anyone who’s child doesn’t cost more than the benefit.

Discussing the amount of money detracts from the horror of the reality of life for the children and animals in that hell hole.

However could that happen? How could those children (and animals) have slipped through the system even with services cut back as they have been?

Medical professionals provide the evidence for disability benefits and a lot of it is required on top of regular in-person medical assessments. These don't take place in people's homes: disabled people are expected to go to appointments at assessment centres for these.

They have effectively by their neglect likely made the children disabled to a degree that when the dla forms are filled out they then pass the criteria to get the award just answering the questions honestly will get it, ie describing a 7 year old in a nappy, and once recieved the additional tax credit/ universal credits because of the disabled supplements etc will get towards £1000 per child possibly so easy to see how it can start getting into many thousands.

We receive universal credit, despite my partner earning 50k, as one of our four children is severely disabled. We get £1400 a month UC, I receive higher rate DLA for him, higher rate mobility allowance (that we have as a car, instead of the money ) carers allowance, plus child benefit for each child. We only started receiving the UC in May this year as we had no idea we would be entitled to anything due to my partners wages. I can see how that figure could come about with extra children on DLA and other reasons. It is a huge amount though, I agree.

Because services haven’t just been cut back - they’re practically non-existent.

Especially since covid.

Oh yes...that's right. They don't know. They're thick. Not like all The Guardian reading, hand wringing betters who know more about where they live than they do.

Those idiots can only think they know but like poor cavemen grunting towards the light, they need higher beings to deny them the evidence of their own eyes.

Thank you JustLyra for stepping down to tell them they're gobshites and only think they know. Thank you, kind madam.