Disability benefits: new system to be rolled out today..600,000 worse off..?
 

Major changes to disability benefits, which critics say will leave many worse off, are beginning to be rolled out today.

New claimants in parts of northern England will now receive Personal Independence Payments (PIP) in place of the old Disability Living Allowance (DLA).

The new system which includes face-to-face assessments and regular reviews will take at least two years to roll out across the rest of the country.

Steven Sumpter from Worcestershire, who suffers from ME and diabetes so finds walking painful, told Sky News he was worried about the future.

Previously, to get disability benefit he had to prove he was unable to walk 50m, but that will changed to 20m.

He said he fears in the future he will lose half of the money he receives and the subsidised car he relies on.

"It means every single trip to the shops and the doctor will turn into maybe three hours of effort and that will leave me in bed, exhausted and in pain for days afterwards," he said.

The Government insists DLA was outdated and the changes mean those who really need support will now receive it.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has described the previous system as "ridiculous".

"We've seen a rise in the run-up to PIP. And you know why? They know PIP has a health check. They want to get in early, get ahead of it. It's a case of 'get your claim in early'," he told the Daily Mail.

He added that rigorous new health checks for claimants were "common sense".

Some charities have already expressed concerns that it will mean 600,000 people miss out on support.

Chief Executive of Scope, Richard Hawkes told Sky News although changes were needed, the new plans were motivated by Government cost cutting.

"The Government has already announced how much the Disability Living Allowance budget is going to be reduced, they’ve already announced how many people are going to lose DLA and they’re introducing a test which is going to provide them with the results they want to reduce those costs. It’s not right, it’s not fair," he said.

PIP will initially be introduce for new claimants in northwest England, Cumbria, Cheshire, northeast England and Merseyside.

As the new scheme is being rolled, out welfare reform campaigners will present a petition calling for Duncan Smith to live off £53 a week to his office.

Musician and part-time shop worker Dominic Aversano, who started the petition on campaigning website Change.org , said: "When I started this petition I never imagined the level of support it would get, and the amount of encouragement people would give me.

"It has sent a powerful message to this Government, showing the level of opposition to their vicious welfare cuts."

Mr Duncan Smith was challenged to live on £53 a week after a market trader on a radio show said that was all he had to live on despite working 50 to 70 hours a week.

During the interview, the minister, whose salary is equivalent to around £1,600 a week after tax, stressed he did not know David Bennett's individual circumstances.

But asked whether he could live on £53 a week, the former army officer, who married into a wealthy family, replied: "If I had to I would."

As well as the Personal Independence Payments, other reforms, including a below inflation 1% cap on working-age benefits and tax credit rises for three years, have already come into force.

Around 660,000 social housing tenants deemed to have a spare room will lose an average of £14 a week in what critics have dubbed a "bedroom tax".

Trials are also due to begin in four London boroughs of a £500-a-week cap on household benefits.

Chancellor George Osborne insisted on Sunday that the public was behind his changes to the benefits system.

In an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live's Pienaar's Politics, he said: "I think a lot of the things that I've been saying, that Iain Duncan Smith and others in the Government have been saying, are in tune with what the great majority of the country think and experience in their everyday lives.

Mr Osborne also said he felt "angry" that too much money was being "spent in the wrong way in our welfare system".



http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...-changes-begin

Yes it has to be done.

"New" claimers will find it hard
to get funds due to harder tests.

This is going to bring misery for anyone who is refused this, the ridiculous reduction from 50m to only 20m is an absolute disgrace.

50m is not really far as a distance to work but to reduce it to 20m is shocking and especially to use that as a condition for the new PIP.
It shows the disregard and lack of understanding this Govt and this really rotten politician Ian Duncan Smith has as to the sick and disabled.

However up to 2 years from now,the existing DLA recipients will also be being wheeled out to these more rigourous face to face assessments, again many will under the new guidelines lose this benefit wrongly and more appeals wil then have to be made.

So soon after the changes to ESA too and the inconvenience, stress and worry that has caused to claimants and their families and carers who have had to help them get things sorted out properly again.
These DLA changes will add further stress to the genuinely sick and disabled.

What a shambles of a Govt and what a truly heartless Work and Pensions sectretary,the only good thing for me, is that all this starts from today and over the 2 next years as more and more are put in difficulty with these badly planned changes, it will all be happening just in time for the next election and by then hopefully this Country and the voters will be truly fed up with this heartless Govt and get on the side of the genuinely sick and disabled after seeing the trauma and unfairness of this new benefit.

Anyone who knows or has someone who is genuinely sick and disabled, don't allow this Govt to ever get an overall majority ,if it did, those at the lowest end of everything would likely suffer massively even more.
They have already said, they will need to make more welfare cuts after the next election.
They cannot now because the Lib Dems are turning back from that way now.
Even the best of the polls who have supported welfare reform thus far, reveal that the vast majority don't think there should be more welfare cuts.

It is time the genuinely sick and disabled had others to fight for them, try to imagine the massive worry and stress all these changes cause to those really ill,yet this man IDS claims he is helping them.
The above article in the OP,to me anyway, shows him to again be without any compassion whatsoever.

I have no problem with the benefits cap or the 1% increase as to benefits for a period either, they are valid things to do but changing rules, making rules harder for genuinely sick and disabled to get the extra help they need to live and cope with their illness and disability.
Making it harder for those vulnerable sick and disabled by stricter rules,some people can support this in the UK in the 21st century, god help us.That to me is sheer cruelty against people who are at their weakest point.

Heartless policy, which I anyway, near consider to be an abuse of power directed against the most vulnerable in the Country.

"This is going to bring misery for"



No Joey its not for everyone
lets see

No it doesn't have to be done. The coalition has chosen a definite path to go down, that gives tax breaks for the wealthiest and hammers those who need help.

How many times can you be wrong and have it pointed out to you, before you actually acknowledge this fact?

I have already seen the trauma and the stress caused to a disabled person arista, 2 appeals have been fought for them already and both won yet this man allows the DWP and ATOS to continue to harass and that is the only word for it.

Attacking the weakest in society is not helping them at all and this has gone too far.
Okay, I and others who see the unfairness of these policies will never convince you that it is wrong to punish and target the most vulnerable for the failings of governments and the powerful but thankfully I and voices like mine do get a better hearing from others, and I also know a good many Conservative supporters, who also think this has gone too far now.

Hopefully their voices will join those who are determined to speak for and fight for those who cannot defend themselves.
I would hate to live in a society where the weakest, sick and disabled are targetted financially though no fault of their own, you may but I certainly wouldn't.

The main instance I have seen as to the stress caused to the person I know is likely happening loads of times too with others in the same position.
If you think that is right, well we will never agree at all as to that.

I said it was going to bring misery to all those who are refused this benefit, I went on to the reduction from being able to walk 50m down to 20m as ridiculous,presumably you think that is acceptable,again if you do, I certainly do not agree with it and what it is, is a moving of the goalposts to make it harder for those in dire need to get this benefit.
Pathetic and cowardly as well, again attacking the most vulnerable.

Then over the next 2 years every single person currently on DLA will have to face this heartless move too.
Too much, unjust and unfair and people will see that over the next 2 years too along with the effects of the already detested bedroom tax a policy again directed at claimants where they are perceived to be underoccupying but a single person on a really good wage, in council housing still living in a 3 bedroomed house is not considered under occupying.

That's the nonsense behind this under occupancy charge,bedroom tax is far more appropriate.

If the Govt by introducing these new guidelines or criteria for assessing what constitutes a sick or invalided person is now "heartless and disgusting" then I think we should try and force the Govt to explain why they have moved the goalposts and are now saying certain illnesses or symptoms of illnesses are now not deemed as being classed as disability's.

We cannot sit idly by and allow thousands of sick,ill or disabled people to lose their benefits because someone in Govt decides the criteria for measuring these illnesses has changed.

By "tax breaks" I assume you mean the reduction of the 50p tax rate, down to 45p. Of course, you realise that under Labour, those people now benefitting from the lower rate of .45p were paying only 40p under Labour? So in real terms they're still paying 5p in the £ more than they were under the worker-friendly Labour Party. How does that work out? Why wasn't everyone all wound up about that while Blair/Brown were in? And let's not forget that some of the lowest wage-earners in the country have now been taken out of the tax system all together. It's not popular to approve of the Tory tax system, but when you realise it's tougher on millionaires than it was under Labour, I don't think there's really an argument left, is there?

I see Mrs Thatcher's legacy still rolls on.................!!!!!

Again I agree with you Nedusa, to me this is the most shocking element of these reforms.
I really do consider this an abuse of power now. I really cannot condemn them enough for it yet the Govt ignores all the organisations that are telling them this is going to cause massive hardship ad see people unfairly losing benefits too.

I dont understand how they can fairly put a target on how many need to be removed/how much saved.

If the people are actually ill, they are il..and no amount of targets will change that fact. Reminds me of when Osbourne admitted that the 'sick were sicker than expected' when doing the ESA retests...then just moving the goalposts to make them not qualify, despite them being ill.

It's becoming a habit but I agree 100% again with you Vicky.

We have had a coalition government now since 2010, and we are currently in a triple dip recession, you cannot seriously justify cutting the tax rate?

yes there is an argument. loads of labour voters wanted them to raise the tax on the elite...the fact they waited till the last minute to do so was bizarre. however the tories decision to lower it to 45 is simply immoral in times of austerity and their argument that the rich find tax loopholes anyway so why not just drop it? is simply absurd. they should in fact close these loopholes, and brother are there loopholes. meanwhile they chase down every damn nickel off those on disability

It is a very serious subject and I am glad that I can agree with your post above.
That is a strong point and to me it is blatant discrimination against the genuine disabled that this Govt has set out on.

I also agree as to the loopholes these tax avoiders can find so easily being dealt with properly and quickly too.
More to the point have them punished in some way financially for doing it too.