Disables Living Allowance-amounts to the same annual outlay as the entire annual transport budget

[moondog]

Three times as many people claim it as when it was introduced 18 years ago. That's 3.2 million people at a cost of £12 billion a year.

Trying to find the link-Rosa Prince un yesterday's Telegraph.

Madness-but who can blame people for taking what is handed to them on a platter eh?
This includes 19,400 people with drug or alcvohol problems and 128,900 with 'back pain'.

did she say how many were able to work because they were getting it?

Hardly a platter took 4yrs for my mum to get the lower rate - despite the fact that she was already walking with a stick, and by the time they finally decided to award it was already mostly confined to her wheelchair.

Basically

1. It's not means tested
2. DLA is for people with long term health problems which affect their everyday activities.
3. Do you actually understand anything about how DLA works, the 2 different parts of it, and the 3 rates for each part?

Well it's hardly surprising that more people are claiming DLA than did when it was first introduced. In order to qualify you need to have a long-term disability, therefore many of the original claimants will still be getting it and then new people are becoming disabled (and disabled children are being born) with each passing year. So of course the numbers are likely to increase over time.

I'm not quite sure what the transport budget has to do with it. Many people getting DLA can't realistically use public transport (and maybe couldn't use it even if it was improved) so the benefit helps to compensate for the extra costs of car ownership or taxis if you couldn't get around otherwise.

I'm also not sure why you have put back pain in inverted commas - it can be crippling.

No doubt you are pleased DLA is going to be abolished. I doubt that many disabled people will feel the same way, and that includes blind people who have just been granted increased entitlement to payments for mobility costs only to have it whipped away from under their feet.

melpomene - I tell you what makes me laugh when the debates about DLA roll round is the

"oh ALL these people have been on it more than 14yrs (or however long)"

well - they don't say - fancy that all those people with life long disabilities, many of who will have been born with them haven't suddenly got better!

How many people did you see in mobility scooters 18 years ago?

And is that because they didn't exist?

There is probably some abuse of the system but peanuts compared to tax evasion (yes the illegal one). You want to look for links try to find the one about the number of businesses that trade for a year or two and never submit accounts let alone pay any tax.

As for back pain - do you want to just think a little about how crippling that can be?

Handed on a platter monndog? Really? i think not!

As nfor back pain- well I never claimed when I had a bad back but when I was 21 I could not walk for three months; heck though, why wopuld that matter? get over it Peachy, it's just mobility after all.

ATOS figures show that 70% of people who appeal a refual with a proper advocate's support win ESA (related benefit) back; 30% without decent advocacy. If I ran a business like that I would go bankrupt. The Gov's response? not to sort ATOS where the issues are, but to withdraw the lgal aid budget for thata dvocacy. Wrong, completely and morally wrong.

It won't be people with back issues losing claims, it will be people with an ASD (NAS has soem scary stories available about ATOS), mobility is key in the ATOS assessment issue. So not slackers- after all if you're a faker a 30 minute assessment is much easier to fake than a massive paperwork trawl such as DLA entails. If however you ahve a bit of pride, or maybe a social processing disorder, you are completely unable to 'play the game' and far more likely to lose. And if you lose? You have to attend a work palcement. if you can't? you lose benefits. All of them. including carers for anyone who helps you, so what then? Homelessness for peopel with MH issues I guess, absolute poverty for people who cannot access work or the benefit system?

On overall balance I think disability is more important than trnasport. That doesn;t mean trnasport isn;t important but disability is more ebcuase it's lives, and the lives of those who are least able to sort themselves out with alternative solutions.

Baroque, sad;y MD works with disabled people; she knows all that, but she doesn't believe in depression and other conditions that devastate people's lives. Something I have tolerated quietly in the apst but as I see Dh fighting to stay moving forwards with the horrible illness, I refuse to accept that opinion without displaying the disdain that it warrants.

(And before anyone assumes, my DH is a FT student (retraining after reedundancy), has his own self employed business and contributes a significant amount towards the care of our 4 chidlren, 2 of whom have been diagnosed with ASD, one who is at the start of the assessment porcess (very much lower end) and one who has dyslexia, dypraxia. far from skiver or any of the names he has ben called on here in the past when his depresison has been mentioned: slogs his guts out, my lovely DH, but has horrible times when I think I ight lose him (has attempted suicide before) and needs a lot of support to carry on. he has never claimed DLA or even IB when it existed- we only get that for the two most severely disabled children, both of whom require a specialist education).

I often wonder why you take every political discussion personally Sancti and respind with a minutely detailed account of your personal circumstances. (I know you are having a very tough time.)

I also wonder why you feely you are an authority on my personal beliefs.

OK moondog - well how about you suffer the same level of disability needed to claim DLA and then you can say it's handed on a platter to the undeserving?

Yes it's expensive. Worthwhile help to those who can't help themselves tends to be expensive. DLA is also paid under special rules to those who are terminally ill. Doubtless you're ok with that though as their claims are quite literally shortlived.

what a stupid ignorant OP.
perhaps it is something to do with more people living longer and abies living rather than dying when damaged at birth.
weird to see an op like this from someone who earns a living from disabled people

Monndog:
A. Becuase I am a grown adult and choose to, normally I don;t confront but I finally grew a pair

B. I have no idea about beleifs you have not placed in the public domain. I do however have a photographic memory and as long, if not longer, a posting history than you.

And trust me it's not personally; by the time disabled families have to contend with PIP and Univesal Credit and statement system makeover in the space of twelve months, I will be back earning all being equal. I give examples f my own because I can't break confidentiality but I expect to be amongst the safer when the changes come in, it is the principles (or lack of) inherent in the way that our vulnerable are treated that make me angry.

And now I must go, because I have a meeting to be at.

The next person to call me "vulnerable" wins this week's star prize: use of a wheelchair to negotiate taking a bus to go shopping. Enjoy! Do let us know how you get on with that.

Handed to them on a platter? sigh.. another idiot OP.

Do you honestly think that having a disability is a picnic? Or having a disabled child? I notice people are all for cutting DLA and such, claiming it's so easy to get.... until they actually are in the position of having to claim for themselves or a loved one. Then they realise how incredibly wrong they were.

moondog - you make a rather inflammatory comment, and then are surprised that people take it a bit personally?

God, I get so tired of people bleating on about how DLA is for free-loaders and fraudsters. Get. A. Life.

Um, Moondog does have a disabled child...
However, I can see how her OP was calculated to get people's hackles up. Precisely, WHY, moondog, are you protesting?
I seem to recall reading that DLA has one of the lowest rates of fraud compared to, for ex. housing benefit.

Um, Moondog does have a disabled child...
However, I can see how her OP was calculated to get people's hackles up. Precisely, WHY, moondog, are you protesting?
I seem to recall reading that DLA has one of the lowest rates of fraud compared to, for ex. housing benefit.

Surely one obvious reason for it is the improvements in medical knowledge. Cancers would have been more difficult to spot and treat, premature babies would have been more likely to die, transplants weren't as successful, and on it goes. People are thankfully more likely to survive, albeit with disabilities.

well, my apologies, but I'm still baffled. I don't understand why the protest then. Still tired of people bleating on about fraud.

Friend of DH recently had to go for a re-assessment to see if he was still entitled to DLA.

This was very stressful for him. He is a double amputee. At the risk of sounding crass there is not much chance of his limbs growing back.

? DLA is estimated by the government to be underclaimed by 40%.

? It has a fraud rate of 0.5 %.

? By 1997 it had stabilised at a little over 3 million, where it is now. Obviously the numbers went up during the first few years as people were transferred from benefits it replaced. Duh.

? It cost "over £11 billion" according to G. Osbourne in June 2010, not £12 bn.

? And if you want another random matching figure (Dept of Transport wtf?), over £11 billion is also the profit made by Barclays in 2010.

'? DLA is estimated by the government to be underclaimed by 40%.'

Where is that figure from This?

DLA undoubtedly makes a difference to the lives of many who both need and deserve it. Excellent stuff. We should all contribute to supporting the needy.

I remain astounded at the assertion that thousnads of people are claiming it who have drink and drug problems.

TIANC I am loving your statistics. Moondog; have you got any idea how irritating it is to be described as 'the needy'? This is precisely the kind of, frankly, patronising attitude that keeps people like me living in a condition of virtual supplication and expected gratitude for the self-evidently inadequate support we manage to defraud from The Taxpayer (may his name be praised).

How so?
If you in need of something, then you are needy.

What term is preferable to you?

What Baroque and Sancti said.

Too much Daily Fail, moondog?

Take a look at some of the recent DLA threads, oh and even better look at this blog for stories of people struggling to get DLA. It's not handed out on a platter, far from it. It's one of the most heart wrenching forms to fill in, and you need extensive proof and supporting letters from medical professionals.

I beg your pardon, moondog, the government's own underclaiming estimate is 50%, not 40% (Hansard, 1998).

I'm trying to find a more up-to-date figure, but as the numbers receiving DLA have stayed relatively steady, that's likely to still be in the right ballpark.

There has been a small increase in claiming from cancer patients. By 2010, Macmillan cancer charity's dedicated financial advice for cancer sufferers and has managed to get that specific group's unclaimed percentage down to 32%.

That's from 54% of terminal cancer patients not claiming in 2004, despite being automatically entitled to DLA ("The Unclaimed Millions", Macmillan, 2004).

I've seen 40 - 60% cited as being the government's own figures, by a disability benefits and work advisory service, but I can't find the document right now to verify. Will post later if I find it and can give the source.

But again, ballpark is right.

Here's that 40-60% again, reported by the BBC in 2004 but annoyingly not identifying which report.