They sent me on a course called ‘Getting to Yes’ which helped me immensely.
I’ve been told that they record you outside.
Disabled couple snooped on and accused of fraud by the DWP
- Thread starter BowdonUK
- Start date
-
- Tags
- disability
They sent me on a course called ‘Getting to Yes’ which helped me immensely.
I’ve been told that they record you outside.
Soldato
What kind of weirdly narrow goal posts are you creating here? either you have a specific person in mind with a lot of knowledge of their situation or you are generalising based on extremes.
Lets ignore that the thread was about disabled benefits, and that you've moved it on to someone living at home with parents in an area that has zero jobs..
But now it's:
1. Someone living at home with zero help at all in any way from their parents..
2. They have to move to an area before they can search for jobs in that area.. (and I guess with that prospective employers/recruiters have no scope for travel expenses if requested?)
3. That the JSA is 100% spent every week whilst at home with their parents and they can't possible save a little money to help further themselves.
4. That all jobs in other areas have zero support for relocation expenses (not so prevalent) or any ability to have any form of advance (much more common)
This is simply not how the world works in most cases.. I would hate to have people being this negative and projecting this hopelessness
I'm just saying in my own experiences of myself/kids/family/hiring young people I don't subscribe to this notion that in general it's all hopeless and so we have to fund everyone more and more because everything isn't attainable within immediate reach.. there are people that need more help, I fully recognise that and support that, but all too often I hear this default stance of hopelessness when actually when you go out pro-actively it is often a very different picture for a lot of people.. this just swamps those more genuine people that need help, and if we could change that mindset, then imagine all the extra money we could then offer in 'getting to work' for those that genuinely do fall between the cracks no matter how much proactiveness can be applied.
Cheers, will tell them to try again and help them this time
I've been in receipt of DLA and then PIP and had to fight for both. For the DLA they stopped paying me it whilst it went to a tribunal, I won, the DWP still didnt pay me the right amount until 18 months later. For the PIP claim, when I was refused, I was forcibly housed in a mental health ward being forced on meds and was near to death, the DWP said I didn't qualify at that time. I won at tribunal, as so many do. There was a change in how disability was viewed prior to the tories in 2010 coming into power imo. But I'm not overly confident the Labour party of today will be much better but anything is better than the current government surely.
Nothing of any real significance will change under labour. They'll likely carry out more austerity measures than undo anything that's been done previously. But, I don't want to derail the thread.
Soldato
Had a friend with terminal cancer and the DWP still called him in for a work capability assessment, about 4 months before we buried him. He was terrified they were going to cut his money off. It's cruel what they do to the weakest in society.
I think when people talk about jobs if you have a genuine disability then finding the right job is very difficult. Also the disabled person is competing against able-bodied people.
My cousin has a genetic disability similar to one of mine, muscle weakness. He tried to get a job because of the social stigma of not having a job.
The job centre person sent him to a newspaper print house lifting boxes around the place. He didn't last one day at the job, and went missing overnight because he was embarrassed he couldn't do it. This is the real disabled battles. Genuine disabled people want to work.
I know it's natural to highlight people conning the system. But we have to be careful of not making the whole disability subject tagged as scroungers or then the government moves in to make it difficult for genuinely disabled people.
The problem I've had in the past with jobs is not having the qualifications* to be considered for the job. The less qualifications the more manual labour jobs appear.
*The qualifications problem happened because I was in the 'special school system', which is geared towards teaching and helping disabled kids, not for getting good grades in exams. I'm lucky they even taught gcse's, though the ones teaching it had no special interest in the subject.
My cousin has a genetic disability similar to one of mine, muscle weakness. He tried to get a job because of the social stigma of not having a job.
The job centre person sent him to a newspaper print house lifting boxes around the place. He didn't last one day at the job, and went missing overnight because he was embarrassed he couldn't do it. This is the real disabled battles. Genuine disabled people want to work.
I know it's natural to highlight people conning the system. But we have to be careful of not making the whole disability subject tagged as scroungers or then the government moves in to make it difficult for genuinely disabled people.
The problem I've had in the past with jobs is not having the qualifications* to be considered for the job. The less qualifications the more manual labour jobs appear.
*The qualifications problem happened because I was in the 'special school system', which is geared towards teaching and helping disabled kids, not for getting good grades in exams. I'm lucky they even taught gcse's, though the ones teaching it had no special interest in the subject.
Soldato
I think every government who gets in will think they can change this depraved system and I'm confident the first they do when they go in to do so and see the system and the facts is simply bury it and try to get through a term through some PR policy change that has zero impact.
This thread has made me go and look at the various reports and stats published by the government and associated organisations and it's obvious the problem is the system is simply stupid.
It starts with a headline stat mentioned earlier in this thread..
Headline Sources
scope.org.uk - https://www.scope.org.uk/media/disability-facts-figures/
Commons library briefing - https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9602/CBP-9602.pdf
- 11% of children are disabled
- 23% of working age adults are disabled
- 45% of pension age adults are disabled
Or, 21% of all the population are disabled.
However, the commons briefing says that it's actually 16M People and 24% of the total population!
To put that in to context, lets assume the system is creaking, and over burdened with the current figures being 6.3M people claiming benefits related to disability..
That is 16M disabled people clammering for 6.3M spaces..
Worrying stats
- In 2002, 3.9M claimants has risen to 6.3M claimants in 2023, that's a 60% increase, despite only a 13% increase in population.
- Since 2001, all more easily measurable/demonstrable disabilities have slowly decreased per capita in line with expected improvements in healthcare/treatment.
- Since 2001, all less easily measurable (AKA subjective) disabilities have markedly increased, such as mental health (doubled)
- Pension age people with disabilities has largely stayed level, the rise is in children and working age adults.
- That one of the reasons for the sharp increase in mental health issues is precisely what every wants, a sharp rise in mental health services.
- That the disability gap is increasing
The headline disabled figures I started with (effectively totalling 16M People) are just effectively self certifying through surveys because we don't have the ability to collect the actual numbers..
It's hard to draw any objective conclusions because it's poor quality data, but looking for credible research/evidence does reveal a lot of talk of overdiagnosis/overtreatment:
"It has been estimated that 30% of medical care is of low value or wastes resources, and 10% is harmful"
Looking at other related studies, you can sum that up by saying that a sizeable amount of people are effectively clogging up the resource with what are in effect 'normal life issues'.. How much this feeds in to disability claims/status I don't know, but it's clearly partly why it's increasing.
You can see the opinions in this thread are quite wide ranging, and I think it depends on your own experiences.. one thing that everyone agrees on however is that those who need the help the most are always the ones that get the least help...
My conclusion? It just reinforces that the system is clearly not right.. you can't have 24%(18M) of the population claim they are disabled with only enough resources for 6M and not expect carnage... Its inline with the EU, they claim 1 in 4 people are disabled as well.
But what do we do? I think its ludicrous to entertain a system that has expanded the definition of Disabled so much that 1/4 of the population is now disabled.. this is absolutely the worst outcome for those who need the help.. I am 100% on board with helping those that need it and think we could offer far far more to those but that needs a very different system than we have today.
I may be drawing incorrect conclusions from the brief research, so happy to be educated more on this subject because on the surface it looks nuts.
Last edited:
I've just this moment had my PIP award letter through the door, and unbelievably they've decided not to reduce or stop my payments this time. My information is even accurate. I feel incredibly grateful and relieved.
The level of stress around this stuff is just not fair! I genuinely felt panic opening the letter.
The level of stress around this stuff is just not fair! I genuinely felt panic opening the letter.
Everyone of working age knows it's basically impossible to 'live a life on benefits' and that this is just a pantomime put on for elderly voters who haven't actually worked in nearly 20 years or the bitter losers who just want someone to punch down at.
A delusional rotting country.
A delusional rotting country.
Last edited:
Associate
That simply is not true, I know people who do live a life on benefits, also the numbers show there is a growing number of families, in the UK that are multi-generation.
Soldato
Whilst the government are ultimately always responsible, I'm not following which policies are designed to reduce corporate expenditure and transfer it to the public sector?
Genuine question, I want to understand the situation.
Soldato
Is it also not (for balance) true that PI is a sector that has grown massively over the years, with no win no fee firms popping up left right and centre and getting very creative in how they kept growing the market, to a point that the costs spiral and start becoming a problem?
In 2000, labour abolished Legal Aid for PI claims, because the 700,000 claims a year that funded was deemed to costly to the public purse.. Instead they passed it all on to businesses.. and no doubt that spiralled over the years too.
i.e. as with a lot of things, abuse creeps in because someone can make a large amount of money out of it, this then makes it untenable, reforms are made and the losers are always those who aren't abusing the system and genuinely deserve compensation?
Don't get me wrong, I can see a callous side to this and labours legal aid changes, but you can't expect systems that get exploited and things spiral to not at least see that at some point you have to be sensible.. if you continually 'stick it to the man'.. the man will die and then where will you be?
Don't forget the introduction of contingency fees.
Soldato
Was you cut in half by a light saber? I swear it was more than 6 years ago since the phantom menace came out… lol
Sorry I shouldn’t joke…
Caporegime
I’ve been on PIP since 2017 and never had one word from them about reviews, cutting or stopping payments or anything.
Do they just pull names out of a hat or something?
Maybe it's down to you being dobbed in
Caporegime
Depends on the length of your award, I'm now on the 3 year cycle so my next review is February 2027 as they haven't worked out yet that unless I grow a new leg I'm never getting any better. I believe there's 5 year and 10 year cycles.