Iain Duncan Smith resigns from Cabinet

[sutty27]

Of course, but because of the dodgy implementation it hasn't worked out like that. The plans were potentially going to plunge up to 96% of PIP claimants into financial difficulty.

 

Sometimes you've got to be pragmatic not dogmatic.

 

Unfortunately it looks like any welfare payment that is going to groups that are not core Tory voters is fair game. This is a very revealing quote from the IDS interview today:

"It looks like we see benefits as a pot of money to cut because they don’t vote for us."

 

It doesn't just look like it. That is exactly what they have been doing!!

 

So now you are claiming that disabled people don't vote Tory, and does it really matter, the payment is there for a reason and if it isn't being spent on that reason it should be withdrawn regardless of who they vote for.

[Bob Arctor]

I have two family members who receive PIP and I am a legal guardian and trustee for one of them.

 

I have been dealing with disabled family members since school age. I have been dealing with the DWP, local authority, social services and other service users since my teenage years.

 

I know how things used to be and I take time to read between the lines with things proposed and things already in place.

 

Don't tell me what you THINK I know and don't know.

 

Just because my view does not follow the line of the rent a gob disability rights brigade does not make me any less valid. I am not so thick that I consider the collective "disabled" to be some protected bubble who should be 100% guaranteed to be immune from any sort of assessment, consultation, change or reduction to their means. Its exactly the same sort of knee jerk exaggerated reaction that people have whenever even a tiny proposal is whispered regarding trimming a part of the NHS.

 

Leaving it up to the service user to decide how to meet their "additional costs" IS NOT the same as spend on what they like and use it as a top up to their income. That is what is happening with SOME of the recipients. Its supposed to be used for an additional cost caused by their disability. Its not pocket money.

 

Those who don't have any additional costs. Those who dont need any additional support. Those whose living, condition or personal circumstances have improved should quite rightly be re-assessed and where necessary have their monies reduced or removed altogether.

 

Its not a blanket reduction. Its not a complete withdrawal. Nowhere in the plans does it say that cases will not be considered on a unilateral basis. They of course will be.

 

IF a person is deemed to need their money, they will keep it. Those that don't wont.

 

What part of this are you not understanding?

 

You are misrepresenting again. It is a blanket reduction in the number of points awarded to people who need an aid or appliance to manage continence needs and to get dressed regardless of their individual circumstances. The assessors won't be able to say "this person should get 2 points for this descriptor", the most anyone will be able to get is one point, which will mean many people will lose the benefit entirely.

 

If you are so knowledgeable about PIP why did you suggest this was about "people who could work but don't", since you must have known that PIP is available for people who work? Either you understand less than you say you do or that was a deliberately dishonest slur.

[sutty27]

Very true Anna. Some people will have good days and bad days. Their illness is not always stable. Different needs on different days.

 

It's fair to say that for many their illness won't have been helped by 6 years of continuous harassment by welfare agencies either. Already broken people leading fractured lives treated like guinea pigs in welfare experiments, all in the name of deficit reduction, and because Tories see them as fair game. Disgusting really.

 

One of my mates can't work because of his disabilities, he as a back to work assessment every year, he turn up answers the question with honesty and leaves, he doesn't have an issue with attending or being questioned because he knows the aim is to weed out those people that no longer need the payments they get.

[I1L2T3]

So now you are claiming that disabled people don't vote Tory, and does it really matter, the payment is there for a reason and if it isn't being spent on that reason it should be withdrawn regardless of who they vote for.

 

No, I'm not claiming that.

 

Give up on your favourite latest benefit cut. It's not happening.

 

---------- Post added 21-03-2016 at 07:27 ----------

 

One of my mates can't work because of his disabilities, he as a back to work assessment every year, he turn up answers the question with honesty and leaves, he doesn't have an issue with attending or being questioned because he knows the aim is to weed out those people that no longer need the payments they get.

 

The aim is to make spending cuts. If you understood the changes you'd understand they were cynically engineered to make sure a certain percentage of people are no longer eligible for payments.

[Bob Arctor]

One of my mates can't work because of his disabilities, he as a back to work assessment every year, he turn up answers the question with honesty and leaves, he doesn't have an issue with attending or being questioned because he knows the aim is to weed out those people that no longer need the payments they get.

 

I'm genuinely pleased for your mate, that's how it should work. There is a danger though in basing a view of a whole system on such limited anecdotal experience. Through my job I see a much higher number if assessments and decisions and many are less benign. We continually see people who are awarded low or even zero points at PIP and ESA assessments who are subsequently awarded the higher rates of those benefits at appeal. Some assessment reports completely misrepresent what was said in the assessment. The DWP is still appealing tribunal decisions which it must know it is going to lose at Upper Tribunal, presumably because they want people to drop out of the process. These are still ongoing problems for a lot of people and while that it's happening it is very difficult to believe that the government really wants to get it right and genuinely help ill and disabled people.

[Ms Macbeth]

Let me give an example just to see if I can stop banging my head against a wall.

 

One of my relatives with a mental health condition used to go to a work placement each day. He could not self travel unsupervised so his PIP budget had an element for taxi accounts, support worker and/or LD Service buses to take him to and from work. Last year he suffered some physical degenerative change and could no longer go to work every day. He now only does 2 days a week.

 

His PIP review reduced his monthly monies by around £150. That obviously created quite a drop in his bank balance.

 

Fair??

 

The example you give seems fair if the £150 reduction was based on the reduced cost of his transport. I did see your point in your earlier post, about services being provided rather than just money. As an older person, I have some recollection of the system working just like that. My mother had a home help in her later years provided by the local authority after an assessment, she didn't get any extra money. Her home was kept in a reasonable condition, and she got her shopping done. That enabled her to stay in her home for a while longer.

 

In comparison a number of years later, an elderly uncle (90+) whose wife was in a nursing home couldn't look after himself as he was deaf and almost blind. He had a case manager, and was awarded money to help him cope. I was trying to help from 300 miles away, because I knew his situation wasn't good. The local councillor got involved, and when he did get a place beside his wife of 70 years, he had £thousands in his account and had been relying on neighbours to bring him food. He needed practical help rather than money. Each case on its own merits seems to be the only answer IMO.

[sutty27]

I'm genuinely pleased for your mate, that's how it should work. There is a danger though in basing a view of a whole system on such limited anecdotal experience. Through my job I see a much higher number if assessments and decisions and many are less benign. We continually see people who are awarded low or even zero points at PIP and ESA assessments who are subsequently awarded the higher rates of those benefits at appeal. Some assessment reports completely misrepresent what was said in the assessment. The DWP is still appealing tribunal decisions which it must know it is going to lose at Upper Tribunal, presumably because they want people to drop out of the process. These are still ongoing problems for a lot of people and while that it's happening it is very difficult to believe that the government really wants to get it right and genuinely help ill and disabled people.

 

The same people work for DWP no matter which party is in government, some times they will get it right and sometimes they will get it wrong, that's why there is an appeal process.

[ricgem2002]

The same people work for DWP no matter which party is in government, some times they will get it right and sometimes they will get it wrong, that's why there is an appeal process.

the same people might work for the dwp but depending on which government is in at the time the policies could have changed

[sutty27]

the same people might work for the dwp but depending on which government is in at the time the policies could have changed

 

When someone's benefits are cut by the DWP it is either justified or an error, there are no government policies that tell them make deliberate errors.

[ricgem2002]

When someone's benefits are cut by the DWP it is either justified or an error, there are no government policies that tell them make deliberate errors.

but as we are finding out these policies arnt working you know the policies set down by government