Dispatches- Britain’s Benefit scandal

[Sunnywalker]

Anybody watched this? It’s made me so angry. Some highlights include a company that can’t recruit an apprentice on 26k because sickness benefits would amount to 24k so it wouldn’t be worth it. 500,000, 25-34 years old on long term sick, a woman who has never had a FT job and claims 35k in benefits, this lady would like to work but says will never achieve the same income if she worked.

This country is bankrupt, public services crumbling! What is going on? Why isn’t there an overhaul!

Still waiting for someone from the "surely most disabled people can do a bit of work!" camp to find me a job 🤔

Oh do think outside your sanctimonious bubble for a minute or two.

Exactly! Well said.
I’ve had 20p in my bank account all week, how do I achieve this magical move?

It is real. It’s the disability element e.g PIP, ESA and DLA combined within a household can get you huge amounts. Mum and or dad on PIP plus 2x DLA etc. However, most on regular UC (whether working alongside this UC or not) get very little.

The extreme payment received to me does not match the costs you have listed.
Dentistry is free for those on benefits and under 18s.
physio / therapy should be available on the Nhs
But alternative food and laundry bills don’t add up to a crazy amount this is what I still can’t understand
I feel there will be no sympathy for mentioning more expensive holidays / holiday insurance as most people can’t afford to go on holiday in this current climate

Nrtft.

I have a ds who will never work- complex needs and severe disability. Nearly 15 working at a six year old level. He will get full rate pip when the time comes (he's had full dla for both since three).

I get quite angry when I see or hear of people who could work that don't. The money they get could go into the nhs or social care making the lives of those who really can't do any work and need 24 hour care better. In fact the money could be spread out to all sorts of things; education, street repair, social housing....

The welfare state should be there for those who can't work but not for those who just don't want to or feel that working is below them.

Where they won't have a local connection so will be rejected.

The ones who moved to Yorkshire left all their stuff in storage and several of us helped them move gradually. ( they hired us vans )
The Scotland move I have no idea but I think they’re family helped as they had four kids and moved into rented till they could buy.
The others, no idea. When we moved we hired a van as we really didn’t have much at all. No furniture owned by us anyway. Just two drawing boards.

Not everyone moved up north. We bought a wreck down south.

But the waiting lists for physio and other therapies are long

I’m not sure about that, my mum is in her late 70s she and most of her friends worked,

Have you been to an area with many people on benefits?

Lots. The areas look like shit but there are always a lot of take away outlets and betting shops. There is money but it’s not usually spent on anything for the communal good.

So the storage and vans were free, were they? I bet they weren’t paid for out of £400 a month.

Omg, no words for this MASSIVE generalisation! How fucking ridiculous

Plus you then get sod all, when my husband had surgery he was told he would need six months of intense therapy with four weeks in a rehab unit. He was given a print out during a 30 minute session and that was it!

You clear the equivalent of a 6 figure salary with benefits. People who earn 6 figure salaries are being taxed so heavily they are reducing their work and are reducing their contributions. I think it takes the absolute piss if I’m honest. It’s not you - it’s the system. Multiple posters on this thread are clearing a near enough 6 figure equivalent salary with benefits. That can’t go on. Yet on MN if you were to earn that money for yourself, you’d be wealthy and should pay more. As a benefit claimant? You deserve it. That’s what’s wrong with this country and it needs fixing.

There is a perception that DWP assessors routinely lie on assessment reports. As a disability outreach worker for over ten years I didn’t see any instances of actual lies, just inconsistencies and mistakes which What I did see were inconsistencies and mistakes which were eventually corrected either at mandatory reconsideration or tribunal. I also counselled many claimants who disagreed with the assessor because they didn’t share their assessment of how they were affected - the perception was always that lies had been told. I’ve also come across instances where the claimant has had a home assessment and the assessor has written up reports reports at the end of the day and mixed up case details. Unfortunately in all of these cases it takes many months to sort out and the claimant can be plunged into unnecessary hardship in the meantime.

Assessment reports are also randomly audited and the auditors have the authority to routinely ask the individual assessor to change the report if they think too many/too few points have been awarded - this has happened in a few cases I’ve been involved in, and I think it’s grossly unfair because the assessor has had sight/examination of the claimant, and the auditor hasn’t.

I think the whole system of PIP assessment was never fit for purpose and is now broken. It needs root and branch reform to make it fairer to claimants and to the tax payer. I didn’t see the Dispatches programme, so I wonder if anyone can tell me whether they mentioned the massive increase and horrendous cost of tribunal hearings. These are often the only way a claimant can get a fair hearing by health/social care professionals who have proper experience of disability. The cost of disability benefits administration could be dramatically reduced if the assessment process was fairer, more transparent, and not so heavily weighted against the claimant - and if assessment providers were given the time and opportunity to follow up with the health professionals actually involved with the claimants themselves.

Yes but how does it make it fair that people with disabilities are earning nearly £100k income? No one should suffer but that is an extortionate amount of money

My mum didnt quit full time factory work until Christmas 2015 two months before her 80th birthday

Another accidental awful fallout from covid “no one assessed due to Covid so just give full maximum amount without any application, review, medical evidence’

Show me a dentist taking on NHS patients. I'll wait.
Physio/therapy "should be available on the NHS". Oh right, is that because you say so? Private physio is far superior to anything provided on the NHS, in my experience.

The nerve of you to try and pick apart the post where someone is being honest about the challenges and cost of living with disability.

Haven't watched the programme, but in your OP you mentioned a lady who had never worked.

The duchess of cornwall (lol) has never worked. Just saying . . . .

I had a concussion, and was injured permanently by an off label antipsychotic prescribed for severe insomnia and anxiety after. I couldn't read or write after, and my movement disorder is a bit like Tourette's and Parkinson's disease combined. It won't ever go away or get better.

I tried to apply for PIP but got a 0 too. I'm so sorry your friend, who is clearly more disabled than me, wasn't able to qualify for anything either. The system is really quite shite, and it doesn't help those who are disabled and suffering from chronic invisible issues and health problems. It seems quite unfair that people who should be able to claim get nothing.

If your colleague has told blatant lies on the PIP form then you need to report her. Presumably she would have needed to show medical evidence to back up what she was saying though?

I haven’t mentioned social housing is this post for someone else
If not then
These people all rented privately….no choice.
One couple were able to buy as a 2bed in their Yorkshire area was affordable.

Not everyone is able to do so, even if they would dearly love to.
Mate, you’re on a thread where a PP has genuinely told a disabled mother (with a DH with a limiting health condition) that she shouldn’t have had her two disabled children, and if she did (how she was supposed to know this was going to happen, I’m not sure) she shouldn’t be expecting help from the sainted taxpayer. If you want to align yourself with that, just say so.
I wouldn’t.