Just been on a course about new benefit system

[buggyRunner]

Christ it's a big shake up.

I say this as someone who won't be personally affected- it is harsh.

Basically if you claim any benefits other than child benefit you're probably going to have a loss.

Lots of people correctly state that many people on benefits are in work.

Well, if people in work still need to rely on benefits because the cost of living is too high, surely it means employers are not paying enough?

Labour brought in tax credits and housing benefit which have only acted as a sticking plaster so that employers do not have to pay a living wage as they know a low wage will be subsidised by the taxpayer via tax credits. Likewise, landlords are being subsidised by housing benefit. This is not what tax should be used for --> to funnel taxpayers money into the pockets of large, rich employers or to help BTL landlords pay their mortgage.

If large companies can no longer find people to work because they are no longer being subsidised by tax credits then they will have to pay more. Likewise, if landlords can no longer demand a certain guaranteed taxpayer funded rent and have to accept what the market can support then rents will slowly fall as there are only a certain amount of people who can realistically support high rents.

Tax credits and unlimited housing benefits keep wages low and housing costs high and the taxpayer gets a rotten deal.

If there was treatment available your dad would have got it.
If the treatment had worked but left him disabled (unfortunately a common side affect of treatment for brain cancers), your dad would have had access to support and DLA.

You seem to be basing your views on how social care should work on the case of your poor dad and some relatives whom you claim are commiting fraud (whilst you collude with them).

Orwellian
I agree with much of what you say.
But the solution is not to punish the workers by withdrawing benefits.

Do you not remember the howls of protest when the minimum wage was bought in? It took years of campaining. Held back by businesses wailing that they would go bust if they were forced to pay a minimum wage (not a living one, a minimum one).

Talk about landlords profiting from HB on MN and you will be accused of unfairness towards honest, hardworking people just trying to make a living.

Cut the benefits and people will suffer because not enough people give a toss about what will happen to them.

You seem to be basing your views on how social care should work on the case of your poor dad and some relatives whom you claim are commiting fraud (whilst you collude with them).

yes and DPs mum, etc. etc

you are talking about how it should work, i am talking about how it does.

any what is wrong with basing my view on my experiences? isnt that how yours are formed?

Labour brought in tax credits and housing benefit which have only acted as a sticking plaster so that employers do not have to pay a living wage as they know a low wage will be subsidised by the taxpayer via tax credits. Likewise, landlords are being subsidised by housing benefit

Labour did not bring in housing benefit! Its been around for years! But yes employers should be paying better wages.

When your experiences are so limited.
Yes.
When are you going to report all of the fruadsters?
Its been going on for ages yet you do nothing about it.

Its people like you that are costing the state so much money.

BTW
'yes and DP's mum etc etc'
DP's mum IS a relative and etc etcs dont count because they are not real people.

So as I said, you are basing you views on some relatives.
You do this for pages and pages and pages on thread after thread.
You are informed, you are given valid, up to date information, linked to statistics yet you still insist your view is correct because your dad didnt get DLA and the rest of your family are claiming it fraudulently.
Whilst you look on and do nothing.

AmberLeaf - Labour brought in LHA (housing benefit for private rentals) on 7th April 2008. They could have used all that taxpayer money to build thousands more social homes but decided instead to keep funnelling it to rich landlords.

Huge housing benefit subsidies have benefited nobody except greedy landlords. I agree that this money should have been used to build more social housing.

Orwellian-they just gave it a new name.

Housing benefit just became local housing allowance.

Tilly
You can't just base this on your experience. Yes your relatives fiddle, it doesn't mean others do.
You also said further up that those that can work should. The problem is, the idiot french firm doing the assessments aren't actually capable of judging, so people who are dying are being declared fit for work.
I have just re-done dhs dla forms. It took me three weeks. So far the dwp have had them for ten weeks. I've had a letter stating that they are seeking futher information from the GP and consultants. He couldn't fiddle it if he tried, and this is the case in the majority of claims.
We have resigned ourselves to the fact that we'll probably have to appeal, the stress of which will probably put dh in a unit for six weeks, but hey ho.

How much money is all this reassessing all the claims all the time going to cost?

I'm probably being cynical but it seems to me that this whole exercise is going to end up costing the taxpayer more the same, but less money will go to those who need it, and more money into the pockets of the private companies who will be badly administering the whole thing.

AmberLeaf - yes, they gave it a new name instead of making a radical change and using the money to build more social homes. The caps on LHA were needed and perhaps some of the savings will eventually be used to build social homes, rather than paying rich landlords.

Ok so we are agreed that Labour didnt 'bring in' housing benefit.

OhDo- you are correct on the taking action about relatives. its two people, not the whole family. the rest of us are normal.

I had only met DPs mum say 10 times before she died of cancer. so she was a very nice lady she cannot be a relative after such as short contact with her. by the time she was diagnosed she was not treatable, although she has steroids also.

its not that i think people on benefits are on the fiddle anymore than anyone else. but in my experience when i have seen people up close who really need help, not all close family members step up and the state provides little.

so IME you are pretty much on your own, bar a very few number of people you can depend on, and you have to be as independant as possible. these threads are all about how much we can depend on each other as a society.

I wish the government would make ATOS pay for the appeals system

My goodness, yes.

Can you imagine a supplier to the private sector getting away with a 40% failure rate and a 16-week backlog on a multi-million pound contract, with only vague promises to 'review' and 'propose' improvements?

They get away with it because ATOS and its sister companies own practically all the government's IT systems. The few independent procedures left are those that are done in person, by hand - like the tribunals. Given that the main purpose of UC is to allow full automation, I'm agog to see how it's going to cock up work in practice.

Now there's client capture for you. The holy grail of the Professional Services industry.

Full automation is never going to work is it because people are untidy. Automation requires people to fit one of how ever many boxes are offered, and there are always going to be a significant proportion who don't fit any.

Automation could work brilliantly once a person's eligibility has been established (HMRC/benefits/local authorities/CSA - all govt. bodies) should be fully integrated and benefits awarded/amended at literally a few clicks of a mouse. In today's age that really should be possible. But establishing eligibility or assessing a change in circumstance is always going to require a properly trained human being IMO.

CharlieUniformNovemberTango

So that's it flatpack? That's the answer. Cut the benefits. Make the people already reliant on them even poorer?

Yes, that's it. Make them poorer, and the people who pay for their half-dozen children richer. Get rid of the incentives to have children.

The problem that arises here is that extra money doesn't solve the problem. By handing over money on a per-child basis you're simply creating larger families of unmanageable children..

So then their children are brought up in even worse conditions. Which often breeds a cycle of them alao being poor. And the children that do grow up to be inspired to get out of that cycle? Well, they can go to university nice and cheaply can't they? Oh wait, no they can't.

How very middle-class of you to assume that the way out of the cycle that your benefits culture creates is university. Because nobody ever amounted to anything without a media studies degree.

The household is already being failed by the system, because the system as it stands forces people to remain on benefits in order to improve their situation. Want a bigger house? Have another kid.

The welfare system as it stands creates and cements poverty, just as the international aid system creates it in Africa and Asia.

garlicbutter

I imagine you think it quite fair that you received your education, your mother got CB, you got your medical & dental treatment, the nice policeman brought you home and so on while I was paying for it? While you were at school I was paying around £20,000 a year in tax + NI, using virtually no public services at all. I never resented it; thought I was contributing to a kitty system that pays up according to need.

Funny how you don't see it the same way now you're paying and I'm claiming.

That roaring noise was the point that was made racing over your head.

I'm talking about people who never put in even when they could and who never work. My problem is with people who think that limiting benefits to three children is somehow abuse. I'd limit it to two, with the proviso that if the second one was a multiple birth that would be covered.

Flatpackhamster - Middle class of me ? :o

I'm far from middle class. Have you been job hunting recently? Of course even graduates don't have much luck these days but they certainly have a better chance then those without higher education. It's a middle class thing to expect university. I'm talking about making it accessible for people who will struggle to afford it.

I'm not saying that we should leave things as they are. I do agree that the benefits system is flawed and people are finding it all to easy to fall into the cycle.

But do you really think taking away that money will help? I think it will cause a whole heap of extra problems.

They gov. need to look at why this is happening. It's not only happening because families have money thrown at them. Which is a bit of an ignorant way to look at it.

Benefit money is calculated to the lowest a person or child needs to live on. When you have another child, they give you the money that the child costs. That other child gets fed, clothed etc. All on a very basic amount of money.

And as for getting a larger house the second you have another child..... Well, the social housing system just doesn't work like that anymore. You are seriously naive if you think it does.

It really isn't as black and white as saying "cut the money to them all" the repercussions are going to be awful. But they never mention that do they? They seem to think all these cuts will magically transform the society into a hard working bunch. But no, those who are working hard already are going to suffer. And those who aren't will be pushed further into poverty.

I'm not denying it needs fixing. I'm just saying this isn't the way to do it!

The idea that you pay taxes and the state provides for you when you need it has already ended. It was on the news this morning about old people with assets of over £23k paying for their own care, even if it means selling their own home.

We are likely to have 8m people with dementia by I think 2050. The state will only help the most vulnerable and the majority will be on their own.

So you base your experience on two people you claim are fiddling and two people who were very sadly diagnosed too late to be able to claim the help they Would have got?

I suggest you widen your field of reference

You have had plenty of education on these threads but you ignore it.

The welfare state is being dismantled. This is not a Good Thing.

My mother ws born in 1941. She has been vaccinated, educated, housed, transported, cleared up after and her health attended to almost from birth.
This has enabled her to live a productive and tax paying life.
It's all going. What s the alternative?

The welfare state is being dismantled. This is not a Good Thing.

It's not being dismantled at all. It is however being rationed. Now I grant you that it is obviously not as good as it is now but at the same time we cannot afford the current system so rationing is inevitable.

So what is the alternative?
We have already established that your ideas about DLA are erroneous.
So saving billions by withdrawing benefits from children who get it because they are allergic to nuts isn't going to work is it?

That is the big issue. Thousands of people falling for the hype, thinking its only the lazy, the feckless, the fakers and the liars who are going o get sorted and all will be well.

For rationing read ending.

In a developed county with millions handing over their taxes, trusting they will be cared for.

Do I get to chose that my taxes go on the single mother rather than sending yet another 18 year old to be slaughtered?

That's what I chose please.

Unfortunately, the thing about tax is you can't choose what it pays for. Which is why those who crack on that paying more tax is automatically, in and of itself a good thing are so hopelessly misguided.

I do think it is so sad that the sheep that are believing the government spin and think we are so broke that we can't afford to look after the most vulnerable. don't actually look at the vasts amounts of money the government seem to be able to find for their pet projects.
so they take money from disabled people....
yet spend how much on a train?