Ah, the disabled benefit cheats at it again

[bialystockandbloom]

So the govt about to try to push through £2bn cuts to DLA. So, the govt spin puppets DM run huge front page feature on the "cheats" again.

All the usual bilge designed to convince the ignorant masses that disabled people are at best a burden to the "taxpayer" (as if disabled people never pay taxes), and at worst money-grabbing cheats who are almost single-handedly solely responsible for the financial mess the country's in. To pave the way for a resounding silence from the media and public when huge cuts are made to disability allowance, services, education and support.

FYI Daily Mail:

1. DLA is not a 'benefit'. It is a direct payment to provide assistance to people with disabilities who struggle as a direct result of those disabilities. It has nothing to do with whether you work or not.

1. One glaringly obvious reason why a % of recipients get it without 'attending an interview' is because they are children.

1. Another is that they provide medical evidence of their disability.

1. Ian Duncan Smith: "At the moment, hundreds of millions of pounds are paid out in disability benefits to people who have simply filled out a form." I simply filled out a form today (for a loyalty card at a local shop). Where the fuck's my money then?? Oh, that would be because the 100+-page DLA form isn't quite the same as simply filling in your name and address.

1. "More than 70 per cent of existing claimants are on DLA for life without facing any regular checks." Hmm, would that be because they have disabilities for life perchance? Blindness, deafness, CP, chromosomal conditions, autism, learning difficulties, ataxia, and all the other hundreds and hundreds of lifelong disabilities.

FFS I have never linked to a news story on MN before but am so spitting mad about this.

Mumsnet is there any chance of getting Ian Duncan Smith and/or DM editor (is it still Paul Dacre?) on for a webchat?

think its something like 0.5% are found to be claiming Dla fraudulently

lot seem to get DLA mixed up with incapcity benefits

AppleCider, I am a genuine claimant.

Next year, the govt is planning to make NI-contribution-based ESA/IB a one-year-only benefit.

I have been ill for longer than that, so my ESA/IB will drop to £0.

How is that "not affecting genuine claimants"?

We will be over the threshold for benefits means-tested on household income. So we will take a hit financially and with this and the DLA changes I will lose the last tiny shreds of my independence. I won't starve, for which I'm profoundly grateful. But it's a load of nonsense to claim I won't be affected.

never saw it in the DM.

I will categorically state that.

Anyway, we all know that simply there is not enough money in the govenment pot to pay everyone. Something has to be done, and as I said in my first post, what I find sad is lumping everyone together under a cloud of suspicion.

By removing those who cheat the system, and it would seem it is going up by millions per year (i think) and making it more watertight there would not be the problem.

As Lancelottie says, the numbers cheating are so small that removing them will not save a great deal of money.

So you can only make big cuts by cutting money to people who aren't cheating.

You need to embrace this idea, AppleCider. You may think that cuts have to be made to balance the books. OK. But please understand who is on the receiving end of these cuts. It's not just the cheats all three of them.

Where did you see it then?

google it.

Tianc - sorry but if you are over the threshold in income, then you don't qualify.

Same goes for anyone else. I don't qualify for anything either, and struggle onwards like the rest of the country who doesn't either.

It's all getting a bit Bloomsbury Set, isn't it, this Government - élitist, sneaking in a subtle form of eugenics by deprivation - disgusting stuff. :(

And how do you know the numbers are so small????

You seem to question where I have read about stuff so likewise.

None of us really know what is going on do we.

oo Applecider do beilive you are showing your true colours that be blue would it

there you go apple from the horses arse so to speak

The official Department of Work and Pensions fraud rate for Disability Living Allowance makes it very clear that only 0.5% of the total number of claims are fraudulent. That's approximately 14,500 fraudulent claims out of an overall 2.9million. So, less than 15,000 Disability Living Allowance awards are fraudulent

It's a swift propoganda response by the government to the case where the couple killed themselves because they were too poor to feed themselves after her DLA was cut off.

I'm sure the case was more complicated than that, but it highlighted the very real consequences on people's lives when their DLA is arbitrarily cut off, particularly for those with 'learning disabilities' who find it harder to deal with the paperwork and bureacracy required to try to get their payments reinstated.

It's very easy to talk about statistics and percentages and savings to the government. It's always easy to stir up the Daily Mail mob with claims of free cars. It's harder when you are talking about real flesh and blood individuals with empty fridges in cold houses they can't afford to heat.

The motability car/adhd story was linked to here, that's probably where apple saw it - but yes you've guessed it, was a DM story.

Applecider Disability Living Allowance is nothing to do with working. You can work and still get it. Say you're blind. You work in a profession where sight doesn't matter. But going about your daily life - shopping, going out, modifying your home to accommodate your blindness, paying bills, all the daily stuff - is much harder for you because of your disability, so you need to have help above what a non-disabled person would have to live the same life. That's when you will be eligible for DLA. It is given to pay for the things you need to make your life on an equal footing as possible as the non-disabled population.

Those genuine claimants should have nothing to worry about

If only.

thumbwitch I agree.

Dave's Big Society is like Victorian England where the poor*, disabled, needy had to rely on philanthropists and charity to survive. No welfare state. You're on yer own, mate.

But only the deserving poor, of course.

"I don't qualify for anything either" Well thank your lucky stars that you don't have a disability or a child with special needs. I would love to be in your shoes.

So are you prepared to admit your statement: "Those genuine claimants should have nothing to worry about" is false then, AppleCider?

At the moment I do qualify. I paid my National Insurance premiums, and was then unlucky enough to need to claim on my insurance. The insurance payer (in this case govt not commercial) has now "changed the rules" with my premiums safe in their pocket.

For anybody who imagines National Insurance is somehow a completely incomparable animal to private insurance, I should point out that

a) commercial insurance companies are among the biggest lobbyists for the dismantling of NI

b) you know all those Aviva ads during Downton Abbey? Think about the scenarios they portray. Many are what we'd expect to be covered by NI and the NHS.

We're being invited to shell out for private cover while public cover is being cut. So we're not saving as a nation, we're paying double. If NI premiums are dropped to compensate, we will as a nation be diverting our basic insurance cover through commercial providers who will extract profit and who describe actually paying out to customers as "medical losses" (US health insurers).

What is parTICularly lovely about it is that if the ATOS assessment deems you fit for work, then your DLA is stopped immediately. You can appeal the decision of course, if you can get through all that paperwork as well, and isn't it about 70% of appeals that have been successful?
But in the meantime, you aren't getting the money. You can get some of it backdated when your appeal goes through - but in the meantime you have to live without it.

I only know this because a friend, who is also on MN, is going through this process now. The only thing is I may have got the name of the "benefit" she should be getting wrong, although I'm pretty sure it is DLA.

Thumbwith i thing it may be Esa your friend is appelaing for

Not sure, THC - might try and find the thread to check. Thanks though!

DS1 has been awarded higher rate care and mobility 'indefinitely'. How I danced for joy to know that my then 10 year old was going to be lifelong disabled. (Actually I danced with joy to know I wouldn't have to do the form again - did it enough thanks).

There is small print though. Even when awarded for life it can be reviewed at any time. So a lifetime award doesn't mean checks cannot be carried out.

Idiots.

'I( don't know enough about how it all works, but did read the other day that one can get a mobility car scheme if you have a child with adhd, just by filling in a form.'

That is bollocks. HTH.

'Mumsnet is there any chance of getting Ian Duncan Smith and/or DM editor (is it still Paul Dacre?) on for a webchat?

Yes can we ask for this?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/1321750-The-DWP-are-bastards-Ladies-I-need-your-help - no, it was DLA. Bloody horrendous. :(

If benefit fraud were a puddle, tax avoidance would be the Atlantic Ocean.

Look! Over here! See the bad people with their £50 a week. See them walking. Do they really have limited mobility? That's your money they're stealing.

No, no, don't look there. Nothing to see there. Just good British business and the efficient management of money. Tax haven? Loophole? Billions of pounds? Have you forgotten about those people, with their benefits and their new car? Can you afford a new car? why should they get one if you can't?