SDA, DLA & Income support.

Hollyharvey

You will get another letter with the DLA amount on from April 15th, when the rates increase. Sometimes these letters are late out and don't even arrive until after you have received the annual rate increase. So your son will still get his DLA, and his benefits won't be dropping.

Paradigm

Hollyharvey wrote: »

You will get another letter with the DLA amount on from April 15th, when the rates increase. Sometimes these letters are late out and don't even arrive until after you have received the annual rate increase. So your son will still get his DLA, and his benefits won't be dropping.

Thanks for that. But...

The letter I got says

Disability living allowance (care) £0.00 NOTE: £47.80 is not counted
Disability living allowance (mobility) £0.00 NOTE: £18.95 is not counted

So if this

sh1305 wrote: »

The department that deals with IS / out of work disability benefits doesn't deal with DLA - hence no mention of it.

is correct (& I have no reason to doubt it) why are the DWP now saying he gets no DLA?

I'll admit to being a bit "thick" when it comes to working out benefits but surely I can't have a letter saying he's getting nothing DLA wise & then get a letter saying something different, can I?

I thought all Gov benefit departments were cross referenced?

DX2

Paradigm wrote: »

Thanks for that. But...

The letter I got says



So if this
is correct (& I have no reason to doubt it) why are the DWP now saying he gets no DLA?

I'll admit to being a bit "thick" when it comes to working out benefits but surely I can't have a letter saying he's getting nothing DLA wise & then get a letter saying something different, can I?

I thought all Gov benefit departments were cross referenced?

His DLA is not counted for the purposes of other benefits, note the part of your quote not counted, he will still get his DLA.

DX2

I'm thinking would he better off claiming ESA Employment and support allowance) now rather than IS.
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeople/FinancialSupport/esa/index.htm

Paradigm

DX2 wrote: »

His DLA is not counted for the purposes of other benefits, note the part of your quote not counted, he will still get his DLA.

Well to be fair it's as clear as mud to me! As you can tell I'm not an expert on benefits (I don't claim any) but surely all this should be amalgamated into one letter? They do "talk" to the other departments... don't they?

DX2

Paradigm wrote: »

Well to be fair it's as clear as mud to me! As you can tell I'm not an expert on benefits (I don't claim any) but surely all this should be amalgamated into one letter? They do "talk" to the other departments... don't they?

Most depts don't actually talk to one another imho. Sometimes it's a right carry on, as you are finding out now.

Tehya

Yes he will still get his DLA it's the wording of the letter that has confused you and believe me a lot of others too. If I had £1 for the of times I've had to ring the DWP over confusion casued by their letters I'd not need benefits at all.

From reading the posts here your son's benefits won't be changing.

fototechnik

--Deleted--

Paradigm

Tehya wrote: »

Yes he will still get his DLA it's the wording of the letter that has confused you and believe me a lot of others too. If I had £1 for the of times I've had to ring the DWP over confusion casued by their letters I'd not need benefits at all.

From reading the posts here your son's benefits won't be changing.

You're damn right it's confused me & I shall be calling them on Monday.

We all have 1 National Insurance number, how hard can it be to have a cross referenced database detailing everything & send 1 letter explaining it? My youngest could do that!

tcr_3

Paradigm wrote: »

You're damn right it's confused me & I shall be calling them on Monday.

We all have 1 National Insurance number, how hard can it be to have a cross referenced database detailing everything & send 1 letter explaining it? My youngest could do that!

DWP's computer systems might be a bit ropey with the letters and positively antiquated in terms of technology ... but they're robust & churn out millions of benefit payments every week. And they're really not going to tinker around with such a strategically important set up just because you've got one dodgy letter that a telephone call can cure (a pointless telephone call, I have to say, because it's been explained to you here quite comprehensively).

As to your suggestion, the expenditure required for developing one computer system to administer so many different & complex benefits, well, that'd make the costs of the NHS spine & National ID card databases pale into insignificance. That's why government & the DWP haven't visited that issue.

What they've done, as a much less expensive alternative, is to have enabled the existing systems to talk to each other via an interface. And sometimes it works, much of the time it just doesn't and that no doubt you've noticed.

But be patient. When Universal Credit comes in you'll have your wish. Your Son won't have IS, SDA or DLA at that point ... they're all getting scrapped ... but, hey, at least you'll only get the one letter about the one benefit. What could possibly go wrong ?