To be sick of all the newspaper articles saying lies about DLA and PIP

[elliejjtiny]

To get any DLA or PIP you have to be significantly disabled. To get the higher rate of either part you have to be severely disabled.

A motability car is not free, it's rented. To get one you need to either be unable to walk 50 metres or have a severe learning disability, which is very difficult to get.

It's always happened but since the stuff in the news about changes to PIP it's got worse.

Articles in the newspapers claiming you can get a free car for bed wetting, which just doesn't happen. There will be children like my ds who get DLA because they have a number of problems including bedwetting but nobody gets high rate mobility for bed wetting on its own.

There are other articles about people claiming PIP and DLA for various minor sounding conditions and I am so fed up with it. I know from experience that the newspapers will have talked to people claiming PIP/DLA and twist everything they say to make them sound like a scrounger.

All these articles are giving off the message that anyone with any minor disability can claim loads of benefits.

It depends how you did it. Child Benefit hasn't cost anything like that to effectively means test.

You didn't say luxury, you said "branded".

"Branded" works to describe higher-end products when own-brand/supermarket brand products are available. Doesn't work for cars because there's no generic/own brand car.

”Motability is apparently the most abused scheme - I know of a woman who had one who split with her ex and he still has the car. So yes fraud happens. (Maybe should have stayed with cars we all recognise as notability vehicles instead of putting lots of everyday cars on the list. As a tax payer I want these fraudsters ousted. As a tax payer Im happy to support those in need, but as I said, not those in greed”

My guess is the abuse of the Motability scheme pales into insignificance, compared to tax evasion? Why aren’t you frothing at the mouth about that - clamouring for HMRC to get more staff, to track down tax evasion? Have you tried getting through to HMRC recently?

Why not means test the funded hours for pre-school nursery hours at the level of the average salary (£34,000 pa last time I checked)? Aren’t parents still entitled to 15 hours for 38 weeks of the year, regardless of income? Why should parents earning over £100,000 pa get 15 hours free, subsidised by tax payers - I imagine that costs more than £77 per week for higher rate Pip mobility?

Ditto child benefit - why should a couple, each earning £50,000 pa, so £100,000 pa be subsidised by taxpayers?

I imagine the vast majority of disabled people getting UC/ESA and PIP to live on, can only dream of an income of £100,000 pa; yet posters are complaining about them getting “luxury cars”?

I am not pointing fingers at anyone. The financial burden on tax payers, as it stands and where it is heading is unsustainable. Everyone needs to tighten their belts not just able bodied tax payers.

If wish people would come out and say the truth ! They do not believe disabled people should have any money to leave home. Thus, should a disabled person have say have a maximum allowance of £5 per week from the Government to survive....

It has been pointed out many times on here, that whether someone has chosen to spend the £305 monthly PIP amount for higher rate Mobility on a Dacia or a Mercedes costs the Government not a penny extra.

In-fact if someone has got the £7995 upfront required for a GLA 250 Hybrid Mercedes or similar vehicle there is an argument to starting a PCP themselves which would give an opportunity to purchase the car after 4 years.

However, there are ways in which costs could be trimmed, for example cars should be kept for 4 years as the majority of Mobility cars have very few miles on them after 3 years.

In any case the argument in no way should be against those who qualify for higher rate mobility allowance, but against the dealers and the British Car industry . These are the ones who are milking the system by propping up the Franchised Dealer Networks and the hefty Million pound Salaries of the Directors of Motability.

I never mentioned PIP.

Again, using the trainers example, it can be used in other ways to distinguish between products. How many times do you see on MN 'my child will only wear branded clothes '? Do we all assume that they would be happy with a t-shirt with Next written across the front of it? Of course we don't.

Honestly the nit picking on this thread is crazy

@Dramatic my family member provided no evidence. She has anxiety but leads a very full life alongside working 12 hour night shifts four times a week. Shes claimed she can't leave the house but a quick look by the DWP at her social media tells a different story.
I've seen all her copy paperwork. I nearly cried when she told me she'd been accepted given my battle.
I don't know why people won't accept that some people have lied or exaggerated to qualify for PIP. It's a very naive stance. Some people lie constantly about anything. For an intelligent person the PIP process will be preferable to having to pretend to search for work for the 30+ hours a week required by UC. Theres a lot more free money at stake if they are successful and this is their incentive.
Government figures on anything can manipulated to say what they want them to say. Some people need to open their minds slightly. Like a pp said if PIP know the percentage of fraudulent claims then stop them. Furthermore I would query how they know they have identified all fraud when its clear some claims are going through with no evidence at all.
The system needs an overhaul and everyone's cases need reviewing. Any claims with no supporting evidence need throwing out and referring to benefit fraud for assesment as a precaution.
I dread to think how many there are but I'm sure the Govenmsnt would be thrilled with the savings made.
The PIP assessors need to apply the same criteria to everyone. A paperbased assessment is not sufficient in most cases. It would be an instant red flag to me if someone doesn't want to answer questions about their disability and health issues. If someone has no capacity then fair enough but a phone call is surely fine for most given the complexities of each application. It's stressful for all but surely a claim with gaps shouldn't be successful until the relevant Information has been provided. The whole thing seems at odds with the system.

The government is not giving you £300 for a car , it’s to help with being able to go out . People then can choose a motability car that is 30% or thereabouts cheaper than a normal lease . It’s not a luxury car at all, they are all normal
cars . The reason why it’s new cars it’s because they cost less in the long run , no MOT just service and they still recover money after 3 years .

Spot on ! Do you know many try to keep the car longer than 3 years but motability just started saying no .Even before it had to be with their agreement only .
the motability scheme is not costing the tax payers a cent . Those £300 would still be paid to disabled on high rate mobility . The hat motability does is simply facilitate leases and make them cheaper . In the process it is th biggest leasing company in the U.K. and creates a lot of jobs too

Why can't you just report her? If people won't report blatant and easily checked fraud and dishonesty then how can we expect the government to know about it?

That sounds about right, as a conservative estimate. I think in reality - because of the need to design a new IT system, transfer existing claims to it, data check it, correct errors and the many complaints about the inevitable errors that would arise - it would in fact cost far more.

And then you have the economic effects through lower tax revenue and higher universal credit claims and healthcare costs, which would make it a total net loss likely to stretch up to 7 or 8bn in total, based on the economic models I’ve seen with your figure for internal costs added to the projected economic harm it would cause.

Not a very clever plan, as I said earlier!

Thanks for providing some data on the cost side to add to the modelled economic costs. It’s clear only a fool would propose to means test it. While the UK seems adept at electing fools to be our Governments, none of them have been quite so stupid as to advocate for means testing PIP for precisely these reasons.

But clearly certain posters on this thread think they know better than independent economists, the Treasury, the OBR, etc…. 🙄😆

I have explained it to you. A member of DWP staff has also come and put specific figures on the internal costs for you versus the miniscule savings, and that is aside from the economic costs that would be added on top of these figures which are just for the costs to the DWP itself.

Which part do you not understand of the repeated explanations of all of the additional costs that means testing would cause and the reasons that it would save next to nothing, thereby create an additional net cost well into the billions of pounds per year.

I think you are being disingenuous repeatedly claiming that nobody has explained it when they have, in quite some detail. You haven’t stated which part you don’t understand, instead just repeatedly tried to pretend nobody’s explained it at all when everyone can see the many posts explaining it to you several times already, so I will not be wasting my time repeating the entire explanation to you yet again, no.

Brilliant. Then they're using it for exactly what it's supposed to be used for. Doesn't it just make you feel glad inside when you know of someone the Motability scheme has helped live their best life? ☺️

Here you go @Bumpitybumper, some “luxury cars” for you. Your obsession with “brands” and which company manufactures other people’s cars made me think of this from years ago. Perhaps you should ask Ogli G out on a date?

a lady I work with gets pip and goes on cruises (shock horror).

another lady I work with isn’t disabled, doesn’t get pip and goes on cruises (presumably you think this is ok).

the idea of pip is that pip pays for additional costs of being disabled to put someone disabled is a similar position as a non disabled person.

@tweezersscissorsminimirror I reported her earlier today. I said further up thread I was considering doing so despite it making me uncomfortable in some ways.
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I guess you could argue that we only provide help for disabled people under a specific threshold and if they are richer than that they must self fund. Would we apply the same policy with healthcare and education? Your next birth or broken limb or asthma attack could be self funded for all households with more than £6k savings and incomes over £35k. How’s that looking?

I think it's you who has missed the point of that post TBH....

My mum has cerebral palsy. My dad died from Huntington’s disease, and I was his carer until he died. I have two disabled DC, twins, one of whom will definitely never live independently, and the other one probably won’t either.

My point is, my life has been spent in and around the disabled community encompassing a very wide range of disabilities.

The vast, vast majority of disabled households are NOT rich. Many are living in poverty, or barely scraping by.

The point of disability benefits is to level disabled people up, so they don’t have a disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person in their situation. Of course, PIP doesn’t even come close to levelling things up, disabled people are financially impacted in ways that go far, far beyond £500 per month.

But I’m open to PIP being means tested, provided that the bar isn’t set woefully low eg/the Winter Fuel Allowance.

However, the number of rich disabled people you’d catch with means testing would be very small. And that’s because the overwhelming majority of disabled people are struggling in a world that isn’t equipped for them, lacks compassion, and has no real interest in making disabled people’s lives better. So that means they often struggle financially too.

Most disabled people would fall below the threshold for means testing.

Also those “luxury” cars you’re so resentful of - they’re often chosen for a reason. In many cases Motability stocks higher end cars because they hold their value but it’s also because luxury cars are often bigger. There are many reasons a disabled person might need a bigger car - to fit a wheelchair or walking frame, room for special adaptations, because they can’t get in and out of a lower car/car of a regular height. That’s just for starters.

So while you might be angry seeing a disabled person driving a “flashy” car, in most cases it’s not a symbol of wealth.

This is a dreadful situation. Keep hammering away at the DWP. Take an advocate with you to any interviews - if possible a relative or friend with professional experience of interviewing & negotiating from a position of authority e.g. a tax investigator or police officer, CAB advisor etc.
In my opinion the government needs to do a lot more means testing of benefits because a re-allocation of state support is long overdue.
A prime example would be a review of state pensioners in receipt of disabilty/disability related benefits. These people (and their spouses) can now be very comfortably off having no dependents, mortgages paid off, works pensions from their active days kicking in and large inheritances from dead relatives. With the greatest of respect they can NOW (as opposed to when they were younger) pay for their own additional needs.
I personally know of cases where the disability benefits of elderly people are just adding to their well stuffed bank accounts. It's SO wrong. The welfare state wasn't founded to bump up people's savings accounts but basically to keep them fed, clothed and housed.
Benefits paid to wealthy old people who don't need them should be redirected to e.g. people like yourself, and parents of severely handicapped children requiring 24/7 care giving them far more money for all the equipment and support they truly need & deserve.
Too much government (taxpayers) money is going to the wrong recipients.

Cars you pay towards aren't usually luxury brands. My husband's car isn't one of the basic ones. We paid to upgrade because (as explained multiple times in the thread) lots of disabled people, need to order and pay a lump sum towards a "luxury" car because their needs cannot be met in one of the most basic cars, but they also don't need £30,000+ of adaptations. It's not about the brand of the car, it's about the features the car has. Sometimes people have need a bigger boot to store a folding wheelchair or medical equipment. Sometimes they need height adjustable seats. Sometimes they need a boot that opens and closes electronically. You get the jist.

In my husband's case, he has a disability that affects his balance and mobility and he has to wear AFOs because he has no very little calf muscle. He drives an automatic so that already limits choice. We went to the motability show and he tried every single basic car available. All of them were too low and it caused a lot of strain getting out of the car. On a bad day he wouldn't have the strength to pull himself up so would be at risk of falling. In lower cars his legs also cramp when driving which is obviously not ideal.

We ended up paying out of pocket for a compact SUV purely because he can get in and out with ease, and the higher positioning of the seats means his legs don't cramp or spasm when he's driving and the boot is electronic so he doesn't hurt his back closing it. Our "luxury" car is a Hyundai 🙄

Oh and for what it's worth, if DH gave up the car and saved up his mobility element, along with the money he paid towards the car.... He wouldn't have enough to get a used automatic SUV with the features he benefits from. Nor would be able to cover a years worth of taxis. So no. He couldn't fund his own transport.

I think people judge without knowing someone’s struggle.

@Tryinghardtobefair great that you are able to get a car that meets your husbands needs. As I have (repeatedly) said, I don’t object to the existence of the motability scheme.

As another poster put it earlier, people are being far too black and white. Challenging how this scheme works doesn’t mean you don’t think disabled people should have access to vehicles. Querying if some people are taking advantage of it doesn’t mean all users are.

Everything isn’t a personal attack of your own situation.

These challenges to the system have come about because the cost of funding them is becoming unsustainable to the state because of the high cost and increasing number of claimants. That’s what’s at the root of the articles being complained about - the government can’t continue to fund growing numbers of claims at the rate they are increasing.

People with genuine complex disabilities should support scrutiny of these schemes, as that’s the only way they are continue to be able to continue to support to those who need it. If far greater numbers of people need support, the overall value of that support will decrease for everyone.

The way to change the system actually in a lot of ways comes back to sorting the nhs. How many people end up disabled, or in a much worse position sooner because of delays and trouble accessing support via the NHS?

my SIL has a neurodegerative illness but the delays she had in diagnosis meant that it progressed further before treatment meaning she needed PIP, and to stop working sooner than she may have otherwise.

instead of targeting those who are disabled look at the system as to what can be done to help improve health overall including much more efficient access to specialists and tests where needed.