DLA spending

[Anonmom812]

My daughter recently was awarded DLA.. She has just turned 16, the award is for £412 every 4 weeks...
She gets £25 a week of it for spending and another £20 a week for her bus ticket.
(I have tried giving it her weekly to help her learn how to budget as when she has it all at once she often tends to spend it all at once and then had none left for the rest of the month)
The rest of the money I split between extra food (she often won't eat the same as everyone else) music subscription for her (her special interest), savings etc (incase she needs clothes or other things etc)

She always gets to the end of the week and has ran out of money so am I being too tight with it?
I don't want to be controlling but I also don't want the money to be wasted on take aways and the corner shop

This is new to us so please any helpful suggestions or thoughts are welcome

Yup it’s the disabled people to blame for the counties problems 🙄

And I'm sure you have all the answers, judging by your earlier contributions.

No

Highly unlikely. They never do, they just like to stick the boot in.

Are you her appointee ? If so it’s up to you how the money is spend on her . I’m my oldest appointee and his money is just added to a money pot , from it he gets anything he needs from stuff for his very specific diet to a new gasket he needs or a subscription.

Are you crazy ? My oldest is 23 , his dla is nowhere near close to topping up his expenses , from things he breaks like his bed ( he is autistic and stims a lot ) to diet , to only using certain clothes to days out that have to be very specific to his needs . Clearly your ableism comes from ignorance

The cost of COVID is more likely to bring the UK to bankruptcy than disabled benefits. It’s estimated it was between £310 - £410 billion, with £96 billion on furlough, not to mention £35 billion on Test and Trace, and £10 billion of PPE, written off by the government?

Why do some posters complain about how taxpayers’ money is spent by the disabled; but say nothing about furlough? Key workers like HCPs, transport staff, dustbin men, etc were working throughout Covid. People like lawyers and accountants didn’t get furlough, as they were expected to wfh, while the partners had to pay the overheads of offices, they weren’t allowed to use!

Those who got furlough were in non essential industries - but who couldn’t apparently live on the benefits the disabled and unemployed have to live on? They should have been paid furlough on the understanding, that when Covid was over, they had to repay the money through an additional rate of 10% of income tax!

Likewise the outstanding debt on student loans was £267 billion by the end of March 2025 and estimated to reach £500 billion by the late 2040s:

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01079/

The number of graduates of the 2024/5 cohort expected to repay their loans in full is 56%! An earlier cohort of 2022/3, it’s 32%!

No poster is complaining about the waste of taxpayers’ money on useless degrees, which would never enable those graduates to achieve “graduate salaries”; or the minutiae of money wasted by students on drinking and going out - whereas the disabled are expected to sit at home in sack cloths, covered in ashes!

You have 3 years after the child reaches 18 to raise legal action for personal injury to a child.

My DD has had a really good service from CAMHS, they made an offer of open ended therapy with a specialist trauma therapist. They’ve worked together for 5 years and my DD is about to be discharged. The difference in her is immeasurable, she’s gone from being a self harming, eating disorder, dysregulated 9 year old to managing really well.

In fairness I’m a social worker, and psychotherapist with a specialism in developmental trauma, so I knew exactly what I was looking for. Even then I left her assessment meeting feeling like I had defended my Masters. It shouldn’t be the case that parents need expert level knowledge and the iron clad ability to challenge professionals to get the support their child needs. I literally argued her into the service, and she has received an excellent service, but it shouldn’t be so hard.

Exactly. We are saving for a wet room so our disabled DC have a place to get washed on the ground floor of the property. They still have wetting accidents and they're both primary aged. We are not doing it for shits and giggles. We didn't ask for our lives to be turned upside down as a family.

Increase in laundry products for us. Two primary aged children who have regular wetting accidents. We need extra washing detergent and laundry cleanser plus disinfectant too sometimes. It all adds up!

I get high rate care and high rate mobility for my son. Mobility goes on a motability car.

The rest of it is added to the 'pot', it isn't in a separate account making sure it is only used on his needs but then even some bills etc are higher due to his disability so it's often a blur anyway.

I was heading to bed so sarcasm was all I was inclined for at that point. I'd made my views clear to that poster earlier in the day who strangely didn't respond to it.

Just someone else with no idea who wants to generalise.

Well it should be because you clearly have no idea of the principles of disability benefits if you think they should be squirrelled away until a specific cost needs to be covered. A poster upthread was of the opinion that disabled people shouldn’t be allowed to save from these benefits and yet that’s what you’re advocating here so they can’t win can they ?

The general principle is that everyday life in general costs more if you have significant disability. Much of that cost is absorbed into household budgets and disability benefits are intended to help with that. Just as child benefit is intended to help out with the general cost of raising a child. The reality is that no one puts them aside into an individual pot to pay for ‘disability things’. They are mostly absorbed into household income because realistically that’s where the money is spent.

You don’t see many threads on MN where posters question how families spend their child benefit and yet people seem to feel entitled to comment on how they think disability benefits should be spent - even when they have no idea of how awards are assessed and no experience of disability itself.

Thanks for saving me having to do that. And very well put.

👏👏

I don’t see how it matters if when she gets to the end of the week she does have any left. Surely that’s how she will learn about saving and budgeting.

In this case, the recipient isn’t ‘choosing’

Sorry I also forgot all the extra energy costs associated with washing and drying soiled clothing that applies in our family too. Again, all extra resources in our household probably countless others like myself relies on CDP to cover these costs. I also do need to buy extra clothing as sometimes the ammonia smell doesn't come out. Hope that paints a really clear picture for those struggling to grasp the realities of it on an almost daily basis.

Long time welfare rghts advisor here;

Ime is quie rare for a family to ring fence DLA money for the personal spending of the disabled child.

Or even for the cost associated with that person's disability.

Some families do. Usually the more well off ones. Most don't.

The more usual thing is for the DLA to go into the general family pot and to be spent on day to day survival.

This is fine. There are rules about the conditions of entitlement to DLA. There are no rules about what it should be spent on once you've got it.

Your job as a mother is to bring in the money and then decide how it should be spent, in everyone's best interests.

As PP have said, your daughter is reaching an age where she might be expected to become more independent and do some more budgeting for herself. That's a separate issue from the source of the money imo.

Perhaps you could increase the amount you give her in her hand and also give her responsibility for meeting another of her needs. Clothes perhaps.

How much do you actually know about DLA for children? The recipient is the parent/guardian, to use on what best meets the needs of that young person in relation to their condition. As the parent/carers they are best placed to assess what their child needs in terms of meeting those needs. When the young person reaches 16 they then will be invited to apply for PIP if appropriate at which point, unless an appointee is agreed and put in place, they manage their payments- often with additional budgeting support if required. You seem to have just jumped in quite late to a thread which, a)you don't seem to have read all of, including important input from parents actually IN this situation and b)from a standpoint of no actual knowledge of this subject.

Her mum is acting as her appointee presumably because her daughter isn’t able to manage her money independently. It’s wholly appropriate in that case for her mum to manage any funds in her daughter’s best interests.

Oh dear some people not quite grasping this yet🤦‍♀️...it's the parent or guardian who will help vulnerable adults and children they care for to spend money on their needs. I advise DS to be careful with his money but I have made sure to ring-fence a tiny amount for savings. He doesn't get a chance to miss that money. It's incase he needs extra therapy or for any other costs associated with his diagnoses from OT and CAMHs.

Because they are children.