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.

You really cannot compare the war debt of 1945 with a debt after one of the longest spells of peace the nation has ever known without exceptionally heavy caveats.

EdithWeston

You really cannot compare the war debt of 1945 with a debt after one of the longest spells of peace the nation has ever known without exceptionally heavy caveats.

Of course you can't. But, to the Left, the fact that the UK's debt was higher when we'd just mortgaged our country and our Empire to defeat Nazi Germany is an argument as to why unlimited debt is harmless.

Where have you heard about benefits only being paid up to 3 children? Not read anything official about that yet?

Julia - best post!!

the current national debt is £32k per working house hold.

& posters think we should borrow more money? how muchj should we each take on £40k, £50k.... because at some point we need to balance the books.

then what?

Sorry but alot of you do not know what your talking about if you want advice about the new rules coming in you should go onto the DWP website or go into your local job centre. PLEASE do not worry about some of the things being said on here most are NOT true most are coming out of a newspaper/website article which are simply wrong.
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Julia they're not selling off the Welfare State. They're giving it away. To their corporate buddies.

Apparently we can't afford not to have these cuts. But we can afford to be involved in illegal wars.

Sorry but this is bullshit. Unless OP can provide a link to where it says that 4th and subsequent hildren will not receive benefits I would think all this is just heresay or scaremongering. Yes, there are cuts happening but this just sounds very exaggerated.

What happens if your 2 bed house is converted to a one bed plus large bathroom? Genuine question btw. Do you think you can get house re-assessed as a one bed?

The benifit sytem is changing. Its changing as in the payments are all being put together housing ben, child ben , child tax etc into one universal credit one monthly payment like a salary this is becoming available to everyone not just non-working families.
Yes some things are being put down a bit however more working people will see more (YEAH!) this is because right now people are getting more money by not working than they would if they worked.
Most accounts will be online however if needed do NOT have to be .
The amount of credit you get will be effected by lots of different factors but the money you claim now it will still be around the same.
If unemployed your online account will help you get in to work and give you bonuses for doing so etc
The online service will also be full of helpful links , numbers and online chat people to help when needed.

People are not going to be forced into poverty nothing like it. The papers just want to sell a paper really .

You will get the local rate of whatever area you live in for example if you are entitled to a one bed and the rate for a one bed in your area is £80 p/w you will get anything upto £80 p/w but nothing over. Even if you are in a one bed that is £100 p/w you will not get over the rate of your local area of £80 and so on.

Hope that helps but thats not new in most places thats how it is now. :)

It is very difficult to get one's head round the changes, unless one has the tiome to research it thoroughly. There is a lot of inaccuracy and misinformaiton in the press. I read one report by a Guardian journalist about the chnages to SN provision which said that the type of therapy we currently have part-funded for our ds would be stopped; thankfully this was a total whopper. I can't help but think that opponents of this government do not help themselves by telling outright lies.
That said, I agree that the approach to DLA is wrong. It is not a fertile source of fraud or dubious claims. And I have little faith in the abilities of the authorities to assess people properly. Given the fact that 99% of NHS doctors have no clue about my ds's not-very-rare-at-all condition (ASD), I cannot see how they are going to assess people who may have mkuch rare conditions competently.

Best way is just not worry about it what will happen will happen . :)

You will receive a lovely letter one day stating what you will be getting so until then meh.... :o

Thanks sunshine
Yes, that's how it is already. So that's not changing then? No extra penalty for choosing to live in a bigger house etc?

Promise it's not bullshit- I am long term poster (who has limited Internet as just moved house and no reception)
I went on a course and we had a benefits refresher/ update.

Obviously the biggest concern is how to ensure rents get paid and clients can budget. The move to monthly payments is huge and will be very detrimental to a lot of vulnerable people.

Yeah, I was just getting my info from DWP publications and Hansard.

But now sunshine401 has told me not to worry my pretty little head about it I'll stop campaigning.

Btw sunshine, if

people who are not working and currently receive a subsistence amount will not be "forced into poverty"

and

people who are working will see more

then

where are the CUTS coming from?

It's terrifying. Today I heard of a 59-year-old woman with a major heart condition (requiring open heart surgery later this year) and learning difficulties being told that her latest claim for DLA has been refused and she has to go a tribunal if she wishes to appeal it because they consider her fit for work. They did the same thing 12 months ago and it was thrown out and her benefits reinstated immediately. But not before she'd had no payments whatsoever for 9 months. If she hadn't had family to help...

I think that sort of thing is starting to happen a lot. The authority makes a completely outrageous decision to cut funding which they know will be indefensible in Tribunal, but hey, the person affected might not bother to take them there, and even if they do, there will still be a period of time where they're not paying, which will make this year's figures look better.
this sort of thing has been going on forever in the arena of SN provision of course - it's not new. LEAs are thoroughly cyncal in this regard, and always have been.

It's so dismissive of people's basic humanity.

If you're old, young, disabled, unwell, or disadvantaged in any way, this is a hard, hard world to be in. It has always been that way of course, but it just feels so wrong when you see the obscene levels of wealth held by so few of the population and often for no better reason than inheritance, playing monopoly games with other people's money, or raking in huge profits from businesses that pay their staff minimum wage or worse still outsource it to foreign sweatshops.

bollocks, most decent people do not support disabled people being forced into poverty

My own view as a result of watching how LEAs work is that these tactics do not, in the long run, save money. Public sector objectives are essentially short term. the tactics the authorities pursue will probably cost more, over a person's life, than spending money upfront to ensure proper provision at an early stage. but all the authority cares about is that year's budget, and keeping the expenditure out of that budget.

IME the people who are under occupying are old people and this wont affect them anyway.

with the shortage of social housing esp in the SE it would be unlikley that someone would be eligible to underoccupy on application.