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?

Thanks for the comments. I am seeing a man at the CAB on Monday who will be helping me and I have also contacted my MP - he is conservative, but he was very concerned and has promised to look into it for me, so I will wait and see. DD has me to fight for her, most of the people affected have no-one. Thats what makes me sad and angry!

I have to take issue with the 'If we stopped the fraudsters we'd have shitloads left for the genuine' - no, we wouldn't. We'd be spreading the 0.5% across the 99.5%, which means everyone might get a few pence more.

Meanwhile apparently we can afford:

• A war in the Middle East
• A vanity high speed rail link
• Weekly bin collections (thanks, Pickles)
• To scrap the 50p tax rate
• To do fuck all about tax evasion.

The sums really don't add up. Personally (and I'm not disabled, am lucky to be healthy and in work) I would much rather my tax pounds went on supporting the vulnerable. And if a few of them go to the unscrupulous then so be it - it's for the good of the many.

We can also afford £40bn to bail out the Eurozone. And millions for Winter Fuel Allowance.

Thanks, eminence - anyone else got ideas about all this stuff that we can afford? It could be a depressing list...

The Olympics?

giving thatcher 100K a year. I mean why?

'We are bailing out the eurozone because the economic consequences of not doing so would be worse. much as it sticks in my craw.'

The way we did with the banks. There's no guarantee that it will work, either. More money down the swanny. Just what the place needs.

smallwhitecat I would be more resigned to the combating of benefit fraud if it were partnered with an equally energetic combating of tax evasion.

As for the 50% tax rate - I would like to see a world where there is no escape for the phenomenally wealthy. I mean, who needs £millions a year? I don't think anyone deserves that level of pay. Not footballers, not entrepreneurs, not anyone. We live in a world where some people in the UK are having to choose between heating and eating - I think this is obscene. Greed is probably the single most hideous trait humanity has - the 'I'm all right Jack' mentality has a lot to answer for.

Oh, and I'm all in favour of letting the Greeks go under. They've let their non-taxpayers get away with murder for decades.

If they don't knuckle down, though, why should everyone else bankroll their ridiculous ways. I mean, as a European, everyone knows how corrupt Italy is, and I won't even get started on Greece. The lies that must have been told to cover up the extent of their debt and ways to get them into the Eurozone, which was always a daft idea, anyhow.

If you were a German taxpayer, would you be happy to work an extra year or more so they can still keep on retiring at 50, use public funds to pay for prostitutes and such like?

The system in Italy, that is, not all the individual people. Greece, o what a state!

eminence - no, definitely not willing to fund these states who should never have been allowed to join. I'm Dutch, by the way.

"So far as combatting fraud is concerned, I think it is incapacity benefit, not DLA, which is the problem there."

What's the evidence there is a significant problem?

I mean, there's always been fraud. There's always been counter-fraud (including DWP medicals, contrary to popular belief). Can't put my hand on figures for IB fraud at the moment, but IIRC it costs a lot less than fraud on easier to claim benefits or tax offences.

I really don't believe fraud has anything to do with these changes ? it's just a smoke-screen.

Not read the whole thread but I am furious about this daily mail propaganda shite, and the fucking govt. Really Mumsnetters what can we do to shame the government and IDS on their bloody ignorance on disabilities? They wouldn't have the balls to come on MN for a webchat would they?
Thinking caps on!!!

FANTASTIC idea diets

Off to start a discussion with MNHQ!

Tbh it WAS quite easy for DP last time he applied for DLA (it was much MUCH harder when he was just paraplegic). I just wrote "I cannot use my arms or legs at all" on about 70% of the questions and we attached a few letters from various: neurosurgeon, OT, GP, saying DP is quadriplegic secondary to cervical spina bifida and bang, award with no further review. But... isn't that a good thing? I mean, once you've got the birth defect and the MRIs and the diagnosis and the fifty operations, at some point ought we not say, okay, we've answered this question. (Although amazingly people still tell him he should try vitamins/yoga/positive thinking)

Now they're going to review him every three to six months to... check his neck closed incompletely in the womb. Good job, IDS. Fine plan.

"I cannot use my arms or legs at all"

Ummm...that's the point though, isn't it? If it was hard for them to see that someone who has no independent usage of all limbs needs extra care, we're in deep trouble.

And, I don't want to speak for your DH, acumenin, but presumably if someone offered him the chance to use his arms and legs fully for a price of £70 per week, he would jump at it? This is what is so wrong about the way it is described. £70 is no compensation for depending on others.

Aye, he would rather have working limbs. Also Manchester City Council are soon going to take the £70 anyway for his 3 hours a week agency 'care', so I don't know what the point of it is. They're just paying it to themselves and making us do a load of pointless admin in the meantime.

But at least now that admin is going to happen over and over! Hurray?

Maybe we would have more money over for the crisis if we didn't pay this French medical company millions to check that people who have lost their limbs haven't suddenly regrown them, and that people who have had serious medical conditions diagnosed by specialists in the relevant field don't seem fit and healthy to the eyes of the non-specialists working for ATOS.

talking now of the ESA and not the DLA, evidently

I'm so lucky to have escaped ATOS so far. It won't last. When I applied for DLA I filled in a form and was rejected. I appealed. I was rejected. Social worker friend helped me in the form "properly". I was sent for a medical. Got high rate mobility and mid rate care for life. I wouldn't mind having a medical every three years or so, what I'm scared of is being assessed by someone like ATOS with no medical training, with a vested interest in reducing the number of claimants who are so inept they need to check whether people's limbs have grown back.

Years ago my stepdad had to go to a tribunal after damaging his back at work. The non-medical people, over-ruled the one doctor there, declared he looked fine and was fit for work, not entitled to any financial help. The doctor actually followed my SD outside and apologised saying he'd seen the x-rays and he was amazed SD could move at all. A week later SD was having major surgery on his spine, with no guarantee he would ever walk again (luckily he did - eventually).
It seems things don't get any better.
Few people would object to proper assessments, but I think we are gearing up for an expensive farce.