The Universal Credit

[Xenia]

Well done Iain Duncan-Smith.

1. Anyone in work will be better off than anyone not.
2. More benefits can be retained despite starting work
3. Housing benefit, income support incapacity benefit of dozens of other payments all scrapped and replaced with one simple universal credit.

This is reported in the Times. No treasury comment.

Very good news.

Thanks - I get it now. Will hassle our MP (Tory) who is in with the 'top crowd' to try and help get the message through.

I agree that disabled people might not be given more money, but a country where the vulnerable who are not able to work are given lots of money from the state and the vast majority who can work don't need to claim is the goal of most Conservatives I know. It's a long haul ambition (10-20 years) and will require all kinds of rebalancing of costs of livint etc. but it is very different to the Labour model of allowing living costs to get out of hand and then making virtually every man and his dog some sort of benefit recipiant.

Lego Care to name your source ? There are of course damn lies and statistics and I do have a pair of eyes all of my own that I use before making judgments believe it or not.
I'm currently taking an evening course where 4 out of 17 are actually paying anything towards it, the rest are on a variety of benefits and cannot work and yet when the forms for the sudent hardship fund came around I have never seen such articulate accuracy, shame it can't be channelled into something useful

Yes mamatomany, how silly of me to leave it out-sorry. It all came from Gingerbread. That is gingerbread.org.uk.

I'm not too sure what you meant by the rest of your post though.

Werll amma I can confirm that that's unusual for an evening course based on my previous work in a FE college processing evening course applications. The barriers to this are already increasing. For example, I could work school hours- most of our appts can be arrnaged around them and if we (DH and I) split the rest we would just about get by.

Here there is a policy that no TA can be hired before they complete an NVQ3. I was refused funding becuase that's the norm if you have a degree already. So I can't be a TA. People tell me there are other 9-3 jobs but as I couldn't get there until 8.30 (based on where we live) and would need to be out for 2.30- nope. Not so far anyway. If there was I would go for it. I ahve childcare set up for ds4 the minute I find something. I mean, even the supermarkets are making people redundant here!

AS it happens a very lovely person is paying for me to do my MA (autism, spot the link ) part time so I can actually get a job that pays enough for the extra costs of childcare we have to experience. Not sure why but even though SN kids need more expensive childcare, you can't get extra help above the level other receive via TC's. I mean, obviously theyc an;t afford it now, but it wasn't in place when the country was more affluent, either.

As for teh what teh ideal Tory would want- Actually I agree that most do think like that. But there will never be 100% employment (for a start under employment is a pre-requisite of the capitalist model) adn I could enver be happy with throwing those % who are genuinely looking and not fidning on some scrapheap. Before DH got his last job (and we are talking 9 years ago, after a spell of being very ill yet employed- was showing on his work record) he had 200 applications and over half that in interviews. If that was him then in a boom time, what must it be like now in a recession? yes OK the new anti-discrimination laws are brilliant, a great help, but there are plenty of things that will make people harder to employ: age, obvious disability, etc.

I truly believe the average Tory-In-The-Street (let alone LD, of which I was once one) thinks the way DH and I are tackling this head on is brillaint. But I don't think George Osbourne and IDS are the average Tory in the street, sadly.

I think they absolutely beleive that you get to make your own luck unless you are in that disabled clas thatc an;t work, and if you are then you are what is wonderfully titled 'economically inactive' and not a worthwhile investment.

you know people that are on benefits can be articulate as well

or maybe all those people that have lost their jobs in the last 2yrs and gone onto benefits were totally illterate and blagged their way through work,

and heaven forbid the single mummies can read and write well (shame I can't do the latter ), or that people with mental health issues or disabilities should have brains.

oh wait - perhaps they're doing the course to increase their chance of a job...........as these days with so many "qualified" people having found themselves out of work employers are taking them first over the "really want to work but don't have any quals" lot.......

DS1 is very articulate, at age 6 he ahd the verbal age of a 16 - 21 year old. He needs supervision to survive a break at school without injuring anyone and after three hours trying this evening I have given in and accepted a wash but dirty hair- no social skills at all.

I know it varies around teh country, but last week 200 jobs at a bakery went; were all thsoe people inarticulate? Or the people in the public sector? Of course not.

it's great that people can retrain, it's soemthing DH is doing. His employer didn;t just make him redundant: it took most jobs to the other side of the UK, changed field and did so when the other three employers in his field were merging to create one streamlined outift, making 2/3 of their staff redundant.

Now, either people can take it and spend the rest of their lives defunct, or they can get up again, retrain and make a future. I know which one I admire the most.

Riven - on the issue of DLA. I think George Osborne is making the point that adults who have been on DLA for years but are able to lead relatively normal lives have some capacity to work.

I know from the charity work I did looking at the finances of people on benefits that that DLA (often combined with a Carers Allowance and Housing Benefit) is a very generous imcome and for many people it means thay have far higher income on DLA than 'fit and healthy' and 'able bodied' people with similar skills and educational attainment levels.

I know that the incidence of people on DLA is much much higher in areas where old manufacturing was shut down. I also have heard that DLA was given out under Margaret Thatcher's era in office quite deliberately under a more lax regime in certain industrial areas where it was known people would never work again. Hwever, it should not be the case that someone on DLA has a better standard of living than someone who works and who has the same skills and educational attaunment level.

I think Osborne is trying to tackle that legacy issue of adults in old industrial areas on long term DLA rather than the case of your DD who I understand from your posts is very severely disabled and who to my mind should be cared for under an entirely separate budget heading within the NHS.

BeenBeta I think there is a massive jump between "have far higher income on DLA" and "someone on DLA has a better standard of living." It can be very expensive to be disabled, things that most people take for granted cost much more when severely disabled.

Even ESA can be a bugger to get - you remember they turned exH down for it initially - apparently perfectly sit and safe for work

And really it doesn't matter "who" they are actually targetting - their changes will affect EVERYONE claiming which ever benefit they target.

The income is higher becuase so is anything related to SN. For example, ds1 hsa to have a bedroom of his own, they can't share. He breaks furniture, walls, we have to pay for respite.

yes, on paper it's higher but A) it's legally not ours as aprents- it hs to be spent on the chidlrens needs or we can lose it (I know someone who has done just that for using it on bills) and B) It doesn;t even touch the costs of what the boys actually need. DS3, also asd, needs a bedroom of his own too according to social services- will never happen. I ahd to pull their therapy becuase we couldn't afford it. We could easily spend thousands a month on the boys and we don't even have to deal with wheelchairs etc.

Xenia.Well I would be interested to read about it with a view to,hopefully,being able to sell.
My email is [email protected] email me if you would like to.

Yup, and with DH working and studying every day, usually the only time I get a bath or wash my hair is when ds4 goes to the CM from the CA I get (and no it's not the same as any other big family, most ten eyar olds won;t let the toddler onto the street as ds1 did when i used the loo Saturday, or feed the toddler a 10p as ds3 did needing emergency surgery in August).

But baths hey? Who needs them! (don't have a shower, not one fitted, rented house)

Have written to my rather friendly MP outliming all this.

Sancty - slght off topic - is it possible you could get one of those tap attachment things for a shower. Obviously if you can't put the rail up to hold it up you'd have to hold it manually, and you'd still only be able to use it while DS4 goes to the CM - but would probably be quicker than a bath and give you a bit more time to do something else?

I think we have one but for some reason the toilet is so close to the head of the bath I could never wesge myself in to use it IYSWIM.

Actually, long term the aim was to install a shower (landlady lets us do something every six months- new carpets this time. At our expewnse, mind).

I am hoping for me that this takes two eyars by which time DH will ahve qualified and we will be safe (r).

But it's still very ahrsh on those who don;'t have those plans and chances, or dps to rely on.

you know you can buy extra long shower hose things

OOh thnaks, will look.

hope you find something, I bet every second of that time is precious and if you can have a quick whizz of your hair under the shower and cut 5 minutes off the time needed for that will give you a little time for something else (like a NIIIIIIIIIIIICe cup of tea

Er yes LOL

Just found out the neighbour is moving out and he had been upset over the summer by us getting behind with the garden (we saved up some DLA and paid somene in teh end on teh advice of the social worker)

But things like a bath make a difference to how you cope with the rubbish sent doesn't it? Self esteem.

oh definitely agree about the bath thing - I rarely bath - but I do treasure my showers. Feel so much nicer and ready to cope with/get on with stuff when I've had one and cleaned my hair.

We are the same, rented house with no shower. When we go camping we have to go to a site with good facilities as it is such bliss to get a lovely hot shower!