One in six PIP claimants have no extra costs linked to their disability

[Allseeingallknowing]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/40693771/pip-claimants-disability-benefit/
So, can money be saved here?

Both taxes and benefits will incentivise behaviour. Judging by these threads, the current system is not working as well as it should for many people and is causing unwanted behaviours.

My suggestion is a fairly simple change - the benefits system needs to incentivise work so rather than a benefit that judges people on their mobility, it should be based on capacity to work (including working from home).

My own situation is that I am claiming PIP for mobility, but the fact is I can work from my bed. I have an adapted computer screen that I paid for that enables me to do so more easily.

My suggestion is that instead of PIP benefit payments, those that can work (but maybe need help funding whatever facilitates work) should be given extra tax allowances so they can earn more before paying tax. That would give disabled people an incentive to work and earn more, but at the same time they would have more tax-free cash to facilitate that work. In theory it would not cost the Treasury anything, swapping benefits for tax relief, but may encourage more people into work.

I am aware that finding work is hard, but that is a completely different issue and something else that needs to be tackled by Government generally.

I know many disabled people living productive lives. They don't really want hand-outs but a tax relief would be great.

ok sorry I didn’t explicitly mean it needs to be one session combined. Charity if that appropriate then can have separate for kids that need some extra help. With that work?

Mine too.

lol any sentence that starts with "I thought I’d ask chatGPT" usually indicates the person themselves has zero expertise in the subject matter and has limited ability to QA the outputs of a piece of internet-bolt on code...

that, due to market interests, was deliberately released into the wild before addressing the fundamental issue that it hallucinates in attempt to interpolate missing information, references completely irrelevant sources with absolute conviction, or often mangles raw input data

have you sense-checked the outputs?

does it calibrate well against other similar official historical spend data?

or are you trusting the graph because it looks nice?

and all the above assumes you've not mistakenly fed it bad data...
and the obvious follow up is please provide a link to the official sources of input data used

How do you know that they are not trying to get help? Did they explicitly say that?Do you have any idea how difficult it is to access MH services? The waiting list alone, is a barrier to getting any actual help. People get sicker, just waiting for treatment.

^This. Even the days of work missed to go to school meetings and doctor appointments would not register with them. The extra costs are almost always borne by the parents,

Again… why are you assuming the professional researchers wouldn’t realise that asking teenagers isn’t going to be the right answer and that they’d have to ask the parents ie those financially responsible for them

I think many posters missing the point by going down the rabbit hole of assuming professional researchers somehow miss the obvious!

I think for some children, mine and @Kirbert2 ’s as examples, we’d be living in a dream world.

The reason there’s no suitable provision for them is because of the cost attached to providing it. That applies to wraparound, extra curricular and holiday clubs.

Spending the money we’d need to to get them them access to that provision would outstrip anything we spend on their current provision and education now, so would just lead to yet more people saying disability costs the country too much money.

Yes professional researchers won’t be asking the kids, as has been pointed out earlier in the thread.

here's the thing, the steep red line for PIP looks nice and all

yet you've not provided any commentary, including the simultaneous drop in DLA, due to on-going phase-out via transfer over

also, the overall spend rate increased from 2020, what major global health event that left many with long-term complications happened between 2020-21?

it began with C and no, I don't mean the UK's rising cocaine epidemic

Exactly.

There's a reason why parents like us are likely to be eligible for carers allowance and aren't expected to work. The alternative would be more expensive.

sure you have😄

correct use of / signifies interchangeable or related

the fact that you think the terms anxiety disorder and personality disorder are interchangeable suggests you ain't got a jar of glue of what you're waffling on about

also, while I don't have one myself, please elucidate on how people fix/cure personality disorders?

But you can claim pip and work?

Those of you suggesting that the system be changed to vouchers, etc - What's your experience of disability and the benefits system?

No one is denying it needs to change. But it shouldn't be at the expense of disabled people

Don’t be silly; I know they are different disorders. Personality disorder symptoms often reduce over time as people learn adaptive coping strategies and they mature. Yet some people become so used to not working that even when their lives stabilise, they never want to work again. I have seen it at work and I really don’t care if you believe me or not.

I think they’d be missing the point as it would presumably open up full time jobs to people that currently are restricted to PT through lack of appropriate wraparound care, thus generating an overall positive return (additional tax returns, societal contribution, mental health and well being, etc etc).

Need society to realise that some costs are good costs.

yes and what do you think is the standard procedure when dealing with a large sample size of data where the true associated variables are unknown and impractical to obtain?

assumptions
averages
coefficients
scaling factors

depending on which you choose and how you go about it, can be wildly inaccurate, unless someone bothers to do the hard yards and calibrates their table of condition-specific adjustments against a reliable sample size of real families

Exactly. It’s worrying some people think they would! Demonstrates a lack of awareness and wherewithal.

Demonstrates a lack of awareness and wherewithal.

ironic, given your last post I've just replied to 😁

Agreed and understood (I happen to have started my career doing statistical sampling after studying a very statistics heavy degree).

I do however believe that professional research agencies understand and do this. They wouldn’t be very good at their job if they didn’t!

No idea what you’re on about so I’ll wish you a good day.

okay, I work with computational modelling of environmental risk, prior to that I worked in production engineering, degrees in both - one from a top 5 RG

@ExpectMore
PIP is for age 16+ which is the age that the teens can choose to reply for themselves and to manage their PIP money in their own bank account. They also are at the age for complete privacy and control over their medical needs and records.

So I think it is a strange assumption to say that when the professional researchers said they asked the PIP recipients that they actually asked the parents of these 16-19 yr olds and then just happened to fail to mention that.

I would assume PIP recipients meant the recipients or their authorised representative if the teen on PIP does not have mental capacity to manage it themselves.

Professionals still make mistakes and overlook the obvious.

Great sounds like we’ve both had similar professional experiences (interestingly mine in environmental sampling), went to similar unis (assuming Oxford in RG, never checked but guess it is unless RG excludes Oxbridge for some peculiar reason), so we both know what we’re on about which is great. I just suspect those doing the research do also 😉

That's the point. Those that can work should, but rather than a cash benefit they should be given tax relief amounting to the same in cash terms.

The ability to work is unrelated to mobility. Those that can work should, but in recognition of the extra costs they incur, they should get extra tax allowances. In theory it should incentivise the disabled to find jobs that suit them and build careers.

I appreciate that not everyone can work, and in my view cash benefits should be limited to those that really can't even do a few hours a week from home. I suspect that is a much smaller number than those currently claiming PIP. I think we would also see improvements in MH if sufferers felt they were contributing in some way to society and not being a drain on it. It is very depressing in itself to be looking at a life on benefits.

Changing the subject, where I grew up, there were extra tax allowances for families with children etc. I think this is a much better approach than providing UC for working families that in my view just suppresses wages. We need to allow people wherever possible to pull themselves out of poverty through hard work, not through the current benefit system.