Carers allowance breaches modern slavery laws surely

[Vatsallfolks]

This country has a minimum wage . It’s a fact . If you are over 21 years old it is £12.21 ph.

Therefore can somebody please explain why Carers Allowance is £83. 30 per week whilst stipulating that carers should be looking after their caree a minimum of 35 hours a week and then some .. which equates to £2.38 per hour .. and then .. we are ‘allowed’ to work another 18 hours.. (if we only could but we can’t as our cared for person actually doesn’t have a 36 hour cut off !!) just to equate to a minimum wage for 54 hour week ??
(when in fact many of us do a 189 hour week ? (24/7) which in reality is £2207 per week ..

so in essence e what I am saying is this . I could say NO .. I’m not doing it anymore.. and it will cost the govt a minimum of the minimum wage for him to be looked after .. but if don’t .. because I love him.. I had to give up my job to care for him .. which I have again because I love him .. but my God .. aren’t the Government taking the piss ?

Has your husband Actuallg had a care and support needs assessment done as per the Care Act 2014? Have you had a Carer’s assessment done, as per the Care Act 2014?

Also, many people can’t earn the permitted £850 month because their caring responsibilities mean they can’t work at all.

That £415 DLA is NOT replacement salary - it is meant for the extra costs of having a disability. It is not means tested. It would be awarded no matter how much money was being earned.

You are incredibly fortunate to be able to work part time on top of the 35 hours per week caring responsibilities that is a requirement for the award of CA.

Tbf I don’t work that much. I work 12 hours a week and earn £350 pm roughly. I do agree most carers couldn’t work as much as the capacity allows. I know dla isn’t salary replacement but it contributes to ds living costs. .

Whilst that is the official route, the reality is the "local authority funding" it should unlock isn't there. Certainly no free goats.

Birmingham Carers Hub do have a nice newsletter though.

it is a Statutory route.

Local authorities need to be challenged when they shirk their statutory duties. It is illegal for an LA to refuse to do a care and support needs assessment or a carers assessment. And if a LA does one and pretends that there are no eligible needs when there are again this is illegal and can be challenged.

Yes I don’t understand why the limit on earning money alongside carers is so low. If I work during the hours he is at school then it takes me over the limit to get carers. But he’s at school either way so it doesn’t really make sense.

I think carers allowance rate is pitiful and should at least be set at the rate of those in the support group of UC/ESA to reflect the fact they cannot work because they are caring for someone for at least 35 hours a week
As a family we are trying to keep elderly DM with dementia in her own home, but even with 5 of us tag teaming, 2 care agency visits a day, 2 days at day centre plus we fund a cleaner and social support ourselves it’s still a struggle - you are all absolute stars - I couldn’t be a full time carer

I had to give up a career to raise my Ds who has Autism, Dyslexia & Anxiety.
(post Covid related Heart Failure and POTS too). It wasn't a case of 'choose that or the alternative of state care'. It isn't there to choose from. In my area, children are not diagnosed until they 'time out' into adult services (which barely exist)

I have had NO assistance since he was born in 2004. In 2016 (we moved area, finally got the elusive NHS diagnoses) I now receive Carers allowance & UC.
His PIP is about to be re-assessed. Again. If he doesnt' 'score enough points' I will lose my Carers allowance & my UC (or, it will become job seeking related)

Whatever PIP say, he will have lifelong needs (& I'm unlikely to find work at 6-11am when he is most likely alseep and I might be able to leave the house)

It is not the Govts 'fault' that he has lifelong needs.
Or mine. Or his, of course.
But I know who is paying the price. Him. And me.

I have a 2nd child who also has disabilties (born before my older child's were so obvious). As our charming exHT said: 'oh, TWO? Nae luck there then'.

I need to know where you live that it’s so easy to get carers!

MIL is disabled and requires round the clock care. She had to give up her job as a nurse and now suddenly needs full time nursing herself. Very sad.

She gets UC & PIP yes. That pays for all of her bills and food shopping. There’s a little bit left over but not much. It all goes on personal support. Definitely not enough to give another person a small income. She has no savings, social won’t help with supported living. She gets a carer twice a day and we’re expected to do the rest. Even when we’ve tried to remove all support they shrugged their shoulders. She only got the two visits after it was stated she would be unsafely discharged from hospital without the support.

She can’t even sit up in bed without help. She’s only young so potentially has another 25+ years left. Carers is an absolute pittance and someone has to do the caring because there simply isn’t enough funding for the amount of care people actually need. She would get a much better level of support if carers was more and someone could quit their job to help but instead it’s juggled between her kids and she’s unsafely left alone for long periods of time. But we have to be able to afford to live too.

You forgot to add that the £83 CA do not come with any annual leave, no sick pay, private pension. No nothing.

It’s a benefit, not a wage. Which doesn’t make it less disgusting but that’s how they frame it to get around it.

No many people on carers want to give to work. The are forced into the full time caring role and our of employment by the system.

So there was an unsafe discharge?

And in addition the LA allowed your MIL to have her basic human rights breached by neglecting her care needs?

If these things are true you have grounds for complaint.

If local authorities are left unchallenged when they break the law they will continue to break the law.

Local authorities need to be challenged when they shirk their statutory duties.

I think you may have missed the Birmingham reference ?

They also have a statutory duty to empty the bins, and that's not happened for 6 months.

The magic money tree was never for us. It's for them.

No but it covers som of the costs we would have to pay other wise

https://www.scope.org.uk/advice-and-support/challenging-complaining-social-care-needs-assessment

The point is though that your child would receive that money even if you worked full time on £80k a year (for example), as it’s to cover their needs over and above that of a non disabled child. It doesn’t top up your carers allowance to give you a reasonable hourly wage.

And who has the energy for that, when you're caring ?

Or is the implication that because "something" is available, it's the fault of the carer and/or cared for not accessing them ?

There's the world of the should, and the world of the is, and they aren't always in step.

I am probably being thick here, but as I understand it , carers allowance is paid for providing 35+hours per week full-time care to a family member.

If that is the case, why are carers then restricted in what they do for the other 133 hours in a week?

Unrealistic , I know , but that carer, allowing for sleeping, eating etc, potentially may be able to work more than 18 hours per week, earning more than £196 per week.

As I say, I may be obtuse, but the conditions around this allowance make no sense to me.

I work in a local authority in a hospital based team. Before that I was a PA to a family with care and support needs who had their care needs met - by holding the local authority to account. And I’ve always been an autism mum.

The law is there for a reason. The routes to have that law upheld (complaints, ombudsman, judicial review) are there for a reason.

There are routes to challenge - people need to use them.

There are advocates out there to help.

I know it’s shit. I’ve been there.

But if LA’s are shirking theif statutory duties there are mechanisms to challenge - the ombudsman pages are chock full of people challenging and winning.

Same here. I planned for all my children to be able to go to school, not for one of them to be in intensive care once every 3 months for weeks at a time, and then at home recuperating. Perhaps I was foolish and all family planning should take into account the absolute unthinkable.

I believe Carers Allowance, or Invalid Care Allowance as it was first called when it was introduced in 1976, relied on two things:

Firstly, at that time disability was characterised by the medical model, and a huge percentage of physical disabilities were either the result of service during WW2 or industrial accidents. Ex-servicemen received other benefits, industrial accidents received compensation. With an average male life expectancy in the UK in 1976 of 72 years, Invalid Care Allowance was seen as a 'stop gap' or a 'top up'.

Secondly, institutionalisation - those with learning difficulties or mental health issues were routinely segregated from the general population and had limited access to education and / or employment. Put bluntly, they didn't need as much support as they were being effectively warehoused.

In other words, there was no expectation, in 1976, that what would evolve into Carers Allowance would be replacing statutory services or benefits. Over a period of years, since the mid-80s, successive governments have outsourced what should be formal care (i.e. provided by the NHS or Social Services) into informal arrangements (i.e. so provided by families). This has saved our welfare system £billions at the expense of some individuals. I do believe this represents a significant case for discrimination.

I can see some arguing the case in terms of disabled children. It should be noted in the case of children that the state are responsible for providing education and, where possible, that means those children are at school for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, 39 weeks of the year. Yes, under those terms, the 'top up' can appear reasonable. Where it falls apart is when the children aren't at school (see above re: intensive care) or where we're dealing with an adult / not a child. Providing evening / school holiday care is dramatically different to providing 24/7 365 care. However, there seems to be no distinction in law / benefit.

As I say, I don't believe there is, or ever has been, any sort of proper conversation around the impact of this.

You are penalised once you receive the state pension. Whilst you can apply for carer’s allowance, it will be taken off the state pension despite still being a full time carer. So in effect, you are working full time for free.

It’s really important to still apply if you are drawing your pension. The reason for this is that it can unlock the door to tops ups and other benefits etc. So if you are eligible to claim carers, claim it.