MSE News: Disability and carer's allowance claimaints to suffer as inflation falls

Tropez

northerntwo1 wrote: »

I know that it's just cooking a meal for example. If you are cooking a meal for an elderly relative not in your house, you need to shop, cook, wash up and travel. I have friends who do this so it's easily an hour a day. If the elderly person was living with you, it's no extra time. You are doing your own anyway. It's just bewildering to me that it's treat the same. They both demonstrate the hours but reality is for one those hours are needed for their own needs.

My friend does a lot more than cooking. She does cook, she also cleans, she has to manage all of her relative's appointments, bills, telephone conversations etc., she has to help her relative move about, several times a night I believe as well so her sleep is also very disturbed. She cannot leave the house for more than an hour because of the needs of her relative. She has to help her relative wash and get dressed too.

I think you may have a simplistic view of what a carer actually does.

MissMoneypenny

Feyfangirl wrote: »

I am 20 years old and currently looking for a job, have been to numerous interviews and currently trying to make ends meet on my JSA and volunteering in the meantime.

JSA is very low, set that low to encourage people to get off benefits, if that is the only income in their household.

Unfortunately other benefits, including work top up benefits, are overly generous. This means that many of these claimants have no desire to get off benefits.

Indie_Kid

northerntwo1 wrote: »

I know that it's just cooking a meal for example. If you are cooking a meal for an elderly relative not in your house, you need to shop, cook, wash up and travel. I have friends who do this so it's easily an hour a day. If the elderly person was living with you, it's no extra time. You are doing your own anyway. It's just bewildering to me that it's treat the same. They both demonstrate the hours but reality is for one those hours are needed for their own needs.

If your only care need was help cooking a meal, someone wouldn't, under DLA, be able to claim carers allowance for you. You also have to care for a minimum of 35 hours per week. There's no way that cooking a meal takes that long.

FBaby

Indie_Kid wrote: »

I know someone who has a car on Motability who is perfectly capable of walking. He's blind and can only see shadows.

It is, if you bother to look at the criteria, possible to receive higher rate mobility and walk.

That might be for this person you are referring to, but it is not the case of the child I am talking about. I am not denying for a second that this person is entitled to what she is getting, even entitled to drive the car without the disabled child present in it, however, this is what gets to some people, that they can benefit personally from what is to help a disabled family member (or even friend), not them.

Indie_Kid

FBaby wrote: »

That might be for this person you are referring to, but it is not the case of the child I am talking about. I am not denying for a second that this person is entitled to what she is getting, even entitled to drive the car without the disabled child present in it, however, this is what gets to some people, that they can benefit personally from what is to help a disabled family member (or even friend), not them.

There is other criteria too. I suggest you read the criteria before jumping to conclusions.

FBaby

So are you a doctor ? I take it you know all these people's in depth medical history that you seem to judge as being unworthy of DLA / PIP ... These benefits have a very very low fraud rate and and not handed out willy nilly . People have to undertake tests.

I do know those people I am referring too very well indeed. They themselves admit even if their children were not disabled, they would still have a car anyway (as so many families do nowadays), but would have to pay for it themselves.

Fraud is very low because the rules are so large and investigations are rare. One of my friend was able to claim high rate care because her boy got her up at night regularly and needed help to get back to sleep. A few months after claiming, he started school and that sorted him out, but she didn't declare that he was now sleeping through the night most nights because she was so scared it was only temporary, then it got to the point when she was due to be reasssessed soon, so just wanted for it. All together, she went more than a year claiming when officially, her boy wasn't elligible any longer, but such checks are never done, just as no checks are ever done to ensure that carers really do provide 35 hours care above and beyond what would be considered 'normal'.

FBaby

Indie_Kid wrote: »

There is other criteria too. I suggest you read the criteria before jumping to conclusions.

You're not getting it. I am not saying that this person wasn't elligible for it. She was, her daughter met the criteria at the time of claiming. My point is that she shouldn't have been able to drive the car for whole week-ends when the child wasn't even with her during these times.

nannytone_2

so she should have 2 cars?
one for when the child is with her and one for when she is alone?
what if she worked ( hypothetical situation)
should she take the child to school in the motability car and then come home to change cars?
before my grandson died, my SIL had a mobility car as they needed a people carrier to enable them to get him in and out easily.
should he have taken him to nursery, then driven home, changed cars, taken the older boy to school and gone to work....
then picked the elder boy up from school, driven home and changed cars and then collected aiden from nursery?

i know you are telling of an issue that is plainly wrong, but, in the course of normal lives, keeping the mobility car stricly for the disabled persons use is really impractical and silly

fed_up_and_stressed

FBaby wrote: »

That might be for this person you are referring to, but it is not the case of the child I am talking about. I am not denying for a second that this person is entitled to what she is getting, even entitled to drive the car without the disabled child present in it, however, this is what gets to some people, that they can benefit personally from what is to help a disabled family member (or even friend), not them.

..and if instead of having a motability car they used to pay the same High Rate Mobility monies to pay for "their own car" which would be used for the whole family not just the disabled person, you wouldn't be able to complain about how they spend THEIR money.

Tropez

wildwestfan wrote: »

I expect you could get the Open University free, my daughter had to give up despite doing well because it was simply unaffordable as she works. there are concessions/freebies for non workers of any stripe that working people would love to access

Not any more there aren't. Since the tuition fee hikes the OU can no longer provide subsidised or free access to their resources. People need to take out a student loan for around £2,800ish per course. There's a support fund for people who are disabled to assist them in their studies but that only covers what they need to actually be able to study.

They have some free, very short courses but those are open to anyone.

I suppose you could argue that it is "free" for anyone who will never be in a position to work since they'd never meet the criteria to repay the loan but then some people who work all their life would also not meet that criteria, or would only ever pay back a proportion of it.