Anxious about news on benefit cuts

Spoonie_Turtle

HillStreetBlues said:

Muttleythefrog said:

There is one thing I will say. Repeatedly general advice on the boards regarding particularly PIP has been not to challenge decisions where doing so would not lead to a higher award and that generally has made sense... little point wasting effort and adding risks ultimately to aim to achieve nothing materially beneficial. I have always been wary of this advice in several regards but that includes the future potential for descriptor and benchmark changes that could materially affect awards. And a reminder there is nothing specific in the public domain about such changes.. we will know more soon... but it's always there in the background of possibilities. We do know the government wants to target PIP.

UC will suffer a lot more than PIP (IMO).
They can spin UC in helping disabled people back to work,  with PIP they can't do that, also with PIP, there must be a vote on freezing it unlike other benefits ( even Cameron left it alone).

Technically true, but much of the general public and indeed even MPs conflate PIP with being out of work. 
The rhetoric around benefits is still that people claiming PIP are scroungers, despite PIP being the crucial support that enables many of the disabled people who work to remain in work.

Edit: sorry I just realised that wasn't at all constructive.  For people who want to take action, take a look at what disability charities are doing (I know Scope are campaigning, for instance).  For those who don't have the energy, well there really is no point in worrying too much (easier said than done, I know) until/unless anything specific is actually proposed.

huckster

The whole benefit system should be reviewed.
Some don't receive enough support and others arguably receive too much.
For those who can work, if the standard allowance was reduced after say 6 months, that would be an incentive to take any form of work available. There was a media story about this, so perhaps it has been subject to discussion.

The issue with any benefit reforms, is that they should be subject to full risk impact assessments and that should not be done in a hurry. Therefore some benefit changes should be several years away. 

I think what might happen is the strengthening of the Universal Credit sanction process. Job Centres becoming much stricter with what is required of Job seekers.  Apply for and take up any work available they could do or risk sanction decision.

HillStreetBlues

huckster said:

For those who can work, if the standard allowance was reduced after say 6 months, that would be an incentive to take any form of work available.

The issue isn't getting people into work, it's the pretence that all disabled people could get into work. The fact unemployment benefit is so low it's driven more people to claim incapacity benefits at the higher rate.
The last Gov (that the current Gov tried to carry on) wanted to change the WCA to remove some people from LCWRA, the change would have meant 500,000 less people on LCWRA, of those only 1% was forecast to find employment, 99% would just end up with lower income. 

MSE_James

A gentle reminder that whilst people will understandably be concerned about speculation in the news, this part of the MSE Forum is devoted to helping people with their entitlement, and is not the place for wider policy discussions.

I can also assure you that as and when there is any firm news, you can rely on MSE's news team and specialist writers for a practical down-to-earth explanation.