The Welfare Reform Bill

[LadyBlaBlah]

I am watching IDS and Davey on New24.

The top line seems to be:

1. Simplify system and make work pay - universal credit system which will be simpler and mean that it will always pay to work.

1. Sanctions - tougher and limits on what people will receive, especially HB. Prosecutions on all cheats. If you turn down jobs you will be refused benefits.

1. Take out the top down bureaucracy and use innovative solutions. Training, help and support for those who are fit to work - from specialist companies. Paid by good results - not like the previous system. Paying companies the money they save from paying out benefits.

Also get to grip with those who don't stick out jobs once they are in it - review to end the sick note culture.

Disabled - DLA will get it whether they work or not. Those who can't work will be supported.

Wants a culture of responsibility and make the system simpler.

Having worked in this sector doing some quite innovative work, (even if I say so myself), some of it makes sense e.g. the simplification of all the benefits, but as the woman from Shelter is saying, the contractual system in providing services is too complicated and prohibitive to organisations that really can make a difference.

IDS is making a promise though, so let's see.

Quite Sharron; if someone is in FT work then how do they go to the job centre and face the fortnightly humiliation interview?

How does one get childcare so flexible that one can swiutch between jobs regularly over time?

I presume it's an attempt to force people not to claim TCs.

A back effect of this though will be self employed people who are told to expct not to take a wage for up to three years: presumably this will stop people doing that? So a lot of potential future jobs through entrepreneurship will cease?

Just a thought but-

Between 2012 and 2013 I ex[pect to be a FT student (PGCE).

Does that mean we won't qualify for TCs based on DH's income then? Without it (DH will be self employed and / or a carer ) we choose between eat or rent.

Its much too complex for the people it is likely to
need the system

Only top not too civil servants will understand it.

Ut looks more and more like a "new poor law."

There may be some amendment as it passes through
parliament. (dont hold your breath) "Gabby"

Who knows Gabby?

Just had a sit down with DH to discuss whether we should even bother me coming off carer's Allowance and appyling. the asnwer seems to be yes, Ic an always pack it in and every penny we end up getting spare (and Dh works hard, hopefully business will grow) goes to whatever non-Tory party we happen to choose.

This Governemnt is making me turn into a harpy LOL. Yesterday I was shoting at Germy Vile on the radio (or rather that blonde woman who does C5 but her name escapes me)about drinker's licenses (surely not even this coalition...)..... my brain may shortly implode.

I do hope not though as I still wouldn't qualify for PIP no doubt

But the good thing is at least it's now clear it's ideology and not idiocy. All that crap about DLA being a non working benefit- if DC didn't know that was crap then something's up given he claimed it eh?

One big effect of the Welfare Reform Bill that deserves a mention is that it takes all disability benefits away from everybody over retirement age. That is clearly set out in Part 4.
As far as I can see, if you are an able bodied pensioner, good luck to you, for as long as you stay fit . If you are a disabled pensioner, or get past looking after yourself, tough, just lie down and die or get somebody from the Big Society to sort you out because you sure as hell won't be able to afford to pay any of the privatised companies to help you.

Welcome back to the nineteenth century.

Newwave. Are you talking about DLA? It was always taken away by retirement age.

comp, are all disability payments of any type removed at retirement age?.

"As far as I can see" tbh this was told to me by someone I know who helps out in a debt relief charity as an adviser, she was quite angry about it all.

I certainly know that DLA has always been taken away when one reaches retirement age. I remember saying to people, DLA is not forever it is only for you, when you are within the span of working age.

Older people get Attendance Allowance here

is that going then?

Have a friend at the moment going through hell as someone has maliciously dobbed them in for DLA fraud (it clearly is not- he has PTSD from army time in Yemen delaing with child suicide bombers, and injutied from friendly fire incidents). Sae cow has tried to get otehr people we know done for planning persmission breaches, all sorts and failed every time- siloentc alls to elderly friends, threastened lawsuits about nothing much at all (she left ehr car in someone's agreden with them doing ehr a favour, forgot to put antifreeze ina nd wanted to sue them whhent eh engine froze). She was asked to leave a club my mates ran becuase of her behaviour and it spiralled since. Luckily I joined club afterwards and have yet to meet her, we might need a few words if I do .

So hoping we don't get him through DLA investigations only to be told it no longer exists!

(exists because he is pushing 60 IYSWIM)

scram

Gabby Logan may be the blond lady on 5-Live; or it could be Vicky D or Sheila Fogarty....I dont know about their hair colour. Stephen Nolan is not a blonde. (But he did a stunt with a hair dye job.) Funny.

DLA is being replaced by PIPs and the DLA forms are being replaced by a a test similar to the fitness for work test (the one that is reported to declare you fit for work if you can pick up a pen and answer a telephone in a nice quiet environment). Firstly adults will be moved over and then children. Various charities have expressed concern about these assessment. Complex conditions like Autism do not lend themselves to simple tests like that to assess how disabled by the condition a person is. It is likely a lot of disabled people will be kicked off disability benefits and unless their carers have another reason not to be forced into work they will have to go out and get a full time job regardless of the welfare of the person they care for- or in the case of children a job that will just about fit in with school hours (leaving no time for kids' appointments, cleaning the house, shopping for food and anything else essential you can only do when the child is at school). They will lose all their carers benefits and be an ordinary unemployed person and treated as such. The person they care for will not be considered to need any more care than a typical person of their age. However, the carer will still be needing to try and provide that care and provide the other things the person's now disability requires with very little money and not enough time. What are they to do: put the person in residential care? That wouldn't be an option available to me. Either I manage or my kids have to go into care and the overstretched care system and the government brings them up- a system that is failing kids without disabilities/special needs let alone vulnerable children on the Autistic Spectrum and other special needs. My twins want to be an astronomer and a paleontologist and have the brains to be able to do it with the right support but they won't if they end up in care. The care system produces more than its fair share of criminals and not many success stories and that is for 'normal' children.

"but there was a comment that the income level could be increased in the future (ie people in work would then face conditionality to increase their hours or get a more highly paid job)."

Surely that is dependant on the availability of those factors? Ie that there will be employers who not only will offer more hours or pay more money? The vast majority of companies pay what the employment market dictates in an area, either because they want to or because they have little option to do otherwise. Fred Bloggs - prospective employee - may be willing to work more hours and would almost certainly want more money, but if the companies he is skilled and able enough to work for do not offer these, what is he supposed to do?

I don't think Attendance Allowance is going exist much longer if it hasn't already been scrapped. PTSD is I would imagine another one of those conditions the PIPs assessment would fail to assess correctly- he may well be declared not disabled enough for any disability benefits.

ScramVonChubby said: How does one get childcare so flexible that one can swiutch between jobs regularly over time?

My Reply: How do you get childcare for a child or children that need 1 to 1 support if you are required to work school holidays because your child's disability was wrongly assessed for PIPs? Here there is 1 scheme that takes such children and they are reliant on money from Children in Need and other such funding. The result is constant threat of closure (they only had enough for this half term and they have just managed to get enough for Easter but no further ahead than that). Also there are never enough spaces so you cannot choose what days your Child(ren) get if any- you can't even choose how many days a week. You put down every day on the booking form but you might only get one day in any given week or even none at all occasionally- if you try to choose specific days you'll probably end up with nothing at all. The only other schemes on the childcare search website (who's name I've forgotten) have eligibility criteria my children do not meet usually based on where you must live to access them.

As for term time once your child is at Secondary School there is no term time childcare. That is normal as well as Special Needs kids.

Another aspect of the benefits changes is even accidental mistakes on the forms will incur a £50-£300 fine- I get the impression that if the information they hold about you is wrong you'll be considered to blame and be fined (which means if they type it into their computers wrong you'll be fined- they usually blame the claimant where ever possible anyway).
There's a bit about it on the BBC News website:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12506273
How will those who find forms hard to fill out, have dyslexia, or mental disabilities or even Autistic Spectrum Disorders?- even high functioning ones may well misunderstand the question because we understand things differently to other people because of our disability.
It doesn't look like you will have any right of appeal (not that we'd get Legal Aid if it went to court- I think you won't be able to get it for benefit related cases if I remember right).

valid questions Aspiemum. Govt departmentsrig things to suit themselves. "Gabby"

It's all bloody awful.

I can't get any childcare for my kids; they both have 1-1 at school but their schools are miles apart. DS1 is known as being aggressive so no childminder with any sense woudl touch him, there's no scheme at all for chidlcare unless your child attends the school for those with the very severest needs (and most do not- mine don't). There's no childcare for anyone over 12 anyway, and the childminder that WOULD take ds3 cannot becuase the LEA transport drops off at teh exact time she and everyone else is doing the school run.

I haven't exactly given up but I am close sometimes.

The thing about errors being charged is appalling.