Attendance Allowance

[ByQuaintAzureWasp]

I think attendance allowance should be means tested. When im an OAP I will have income of £50k plus (net) and I dont think I should be a burden on the taxpayer. What do you think?

It's based on providing 35 hours of care a week - so well below NMW. But it's not considered employment so NMW doesn't apply, and in theory at least you could still work alongside that (but of course there's nothing extra if you wildly exceed 35 hours).

And if you're in receipt of a full state pension, you get £0. (If your pension is less than full rate, Carers can top it up to equal full rate, but that's it)

35 hours a week.
My friends mum gets an hour morning and evening that she pays for. They get her showered and changed.
He does everything else. She has to be fed, is incontinent, needs blood sugar tested, medication. No days off, no weekends, no social life. He loves his mum but it is exploitation. He is trying to arrange more care visits, which they will pay for, but there are no carers.

Exactly. My step-mum was only able to claim it as her DDIL filled in all the forms and collated all the evidence.

The whole point of AA and PIP is to help with the extra costs associated with disability. But I'm starting to think this is just another disability bashing thread, albeit using AA rather than PIP as the bait so it gets some points awarded for creativity.

Or another thread moaning about pensioners. Who has a likely income of 50k net on retirement? Not many pensioners I know! How many individuals have 50k net pa before retirement!
Good for you OP

This is my mothers situation too.
She's applied for it 11 weeks ago.

If she gets it, it will allow her to buy in more support.

For my mum that means she can actually pay her cleaner for all the extra jobs she does for free, will pay for her to get a taxi to the supermarket and someone to take her for her medical appointments.

It's not going into her weekly kitty.

She'll be buying in help to ensure she is not a burden to anyone and everyone around her.

It's taken A lot to get her to claim it.
She's in her eighties with massively reduced mobility. In great pain for much of the day despite being on a plethora of pain meds.

It's really not an easy 'benefit' to claim, the Barr is exceedingly high.

You literally need to prove your mobility is physically impacted.

I would like to see any examples of able bodied people past pension age being able to claim it!!

I think it's more about appreciating their contribution to society? Costing the tax payer a pittance, instead of the amount that would potentially be paid if the person needing care went to a nursing home? I mean actually people that get AA will be on a pension won't they? Therefore it's not about replacing earnings.

It is to help elderly disabled people with increased costs of living. Extra heating, taxis for hospital appointments, carers etc. I do think there should be a maximum capital limit. Not so much an income limit as e.g due to a terminal illness, my FIL had to heat his house 24/7, pay for carers, extra laundry etc and although he wasn't on a basic income, his income without AA wouldn't have allowed him to pay for everything he needed to.

But, people with rainy day savings should be using them to pay for the things they need later in life.

If you're not terminally ill, you have to have been severely affected by disability for six months before they'll consider your claim. My FIL went from (in his terms) independent to nursing home in a matter of 3 months, and is now paying thousands every month because he became too ill to live safely at home. He's not what you'd call a rich pensioner at all; he has his state pension and a moderate occupational pension, along with a small semi in a cheap part of the country. AA will be a tiny fraction of the fees he has to pay, and the full annual rate wouldn't even cover the cost of a month in the home.
Of course his modest savings are for his old age. But pensioners with serious illness will get through their cash a helluva lot faster than those who don't. Care is really expensive. Before his last hospital admission, we'd sorted private care visits that were coming up at around £400 a week. Attendance Allowance doesn't really touch the sides.

...

It's not paid to the Carer. It's a benefit for the person with the disability or illness to enable them to retain independence or get in some extra help/treatment to make things a little but better for them.

Carer's Allowance is what a carer can get IF they meet the criteria, which are in effect a means test - you must provide 35 hours or more of care and if you do work, not earn more than £151 rising now to £196 per week. CA is £81.90 per week. It's already a pittance. It's also a working age benefit, it does pay Class 1 NI however, when you hit SPA, it is withdrawn. We're not sitting on our arses doing fuck all, caring is bloody hard and most of us are sacrificing our own ability to earn and save for our old age to look after our loved ones. Yes, we choose to do it. Look at the alternatives for care, it's a disgrace, and the system is geared against self funders.

If you want to reduce the cost of benefits, how about getting the 20% of working age people back into work and off benefits rather than going for the easy target of the ill, disabled and aged.

No it shouldn't, it pays for individual care needs like PIP. If anything those receiving AA should still get Winter Fuel Allowance regardless of income, as they are more likely to be vulnerable and homebound.

It's very much in society's interest to keep people in their own homes for as long as possible. There's a desperate need for care home places and also professional carers who go to people's homes. Not to mention the impact on NHS if people cannot be discharged safely.

So a small payment, that allows a person to buy in a bit of help (not necessarily full on care) that's enough to hold it together (being warm enough, paying the expenses of someone who runs errands/gives lifts etc) is a small but very important part of reducing demand for adult social care.

And I agree with PPs that it's an absolute beast of a form. I'm sure that keeps costs down by the wholly unfair method of being daunting.

My mum earns £3.20 a week too much to get any pension credit. Doesn't own a property (rents) and is entitled to AA. She has a home help and a gardener which the AA pays for. If it was means tested she would likely no longer get it as she is not entitled to pension credit. This would mean most likely a care home as she couldn't afford or be physically able to do the housework or garden. This would cost the state a lot more than the relatively small amount of AA she gets weekly.

And those of us who gave up our time/ salary/ opportunities/ pension contributions to care for our parents will be vilified for not having worked enough to have a big pension pot when the time comes.
My heart absolutely breaks for parents looking after disabled children who get kicked every way they turn. What a nasty society we have become.

At least it is highlighting how difficult it is to get these type of benefits, as so many people on MN seem to think that all you have to say is, I have a dodgy knee etc, and then the money just pours in.

The form to get it is a beast, but it turns out the form to cancel it is pretty bad too. We've just done the one for my late DDad - after filling in the Tell Us Once - and there are 7 pages of questions!

Surely 'Is he dead?' and 'Since what date?' should cover everything they need to know.

My dm died in January and I cancelled her AA via the tell us once service, but didn’t have to fill out a form or answer any more questions. As you say it’s unnecessary and also upsetting when you are recently bereaved.

Actually this is one of the benefits I dont believe should be means tested. Its saving a fortune on caring staff and relatives have to do the job regardless of status

In those 7 pages, are there any questions that you can read and then simply skip, because they don't apply in that particular situation?

Does the AA section of DWP ask to see a death certificate or do they simply take what is written on the cancel form and then find out from another section e.g. State Pensions, that the date has been verified?

Im sure when my dad died and we did the Tell Us Once service his AA just got cancelled

My DM claimed it, but only after DF died suddenly. He had been her carer and she needed to get paid care in. She was self funding for her care, BUT as she lived in Wales, her care costs were capped at £50pw (has since increased) whilst her AA was £80 something per week. So she couldn't even spend all her AA on carers.

My DMIL is registered as severely visually impaired and still manages to live alone in her late 90's. She wouldn't dream of claiming AA. As others have said, you don't have to claim it if you don't need it.

Yes and they will quite probably be paying fees to live in a care home at some point. Their savings can only be spent once.