dojj

iTrader: (3)

the rent was originally £1050 a week, so why the council have decided to pay the somalian £2k a week and then he can pay the landlord is deffo suspect

Psycho Warren

iTrader: (5)

and i presume thats on top of all his other benefits???

yes im sure he will whinge about having 7 kids but he CHOSE to have that many.

this is how much they get:


fucking rediculous.

to earn that money through work, he would need to earn:

£237130

dojj

iTrader: (3)

:shoc ked:

STAFFY OWNER

The original story regarding the Somali rent situation is bad enough but then to read further and see how vaughant is treated in business and Warren is treated regarding his disability/benefits situation is just as infuriating. Somebody needs to get a grip of this country. I'm as patriotic as anybody in the UK and would defend it against most things in a discussion but the way our own citizens are treated just cannot be justified.

In a nutshell i don't see why anybody on benefits should be able to live a better lifestyle than a person who works for a living otherwise what's the incentive to work?

Further to the above if our country got a bit/lot tougher with immigrants i.e. not shoving benefits in their direction so they didn't have it so easy they might be less likely to settle here and would move on to some other gullible country and drain their resources.

Isaac.Hunt

I've read that the war disablement pensions can also be topped up with other allowances; "For example, your age, care and mobility needs, or loss of earnings, may affect the amount you get."

I suspect this is the reason why DLA is not payable to somebody receiving a war disablement pension is owing to the fact that DLA is to support the care and mobility needs of the person, which is already mentioned as having been addressed as part of the assessment procedure for the war disablement pension itself? If this is the case and awards of DLA were made in addition to payments within the war pension, surely an individual would be at an advantage compared to a non-recipient of the pension, with comparable injuries/disabilities. Imagine if you will too that such persons will most likely have had their disabilities from before they were able to be economically active (e.g. children born with a disability) and so it would be unjust to provide them with less funding than someone who was prepared to fight for their country, because they never had the opportunity to do so.


Incidentally where others have mentioned it, it isn't really up to much to argue the race card on this one, as British families with 7 kids would receive exactly the same amount as detailed above. The only quantifiable advantage to being 'foreign' in the benefits setup is with regard to the provision of social housing. But this is related to the fact that people who are homeless (statutory definition not the everyday definition) and in priority need have a statutory right to be housed by the local authority. Persons with no family and no fixed abode are often homeless under the legal definition quite easily. Adding to the fact that these families often have many children means that often they can be statutorily overcrowded in a property to a degree that someone with fewer children would not be, giving them a more immediate need to be rehoused. There are plenty of british national families like this too. On the flip side though, many immigrants/asylum seekers/foreign arrivals howsoever described often have no recourse to public funds.

There are far, far more white British people as a percentage of the populus of any given race taking advantage of the social security system than any other ethnic group. It is all very well to blame 'them' whoever they are, but it is subject to so much media hype and interference by the Daily Mail et al. that barely any of the scaremonger tactics or figures are accurate (often they will say eg 1000 of x nationality in area x are claiming benefits, but won't mention the 20,000 white british nationals doing it in area x).

Psycho Warren

iTrader: (5)

youve missed the point completely

DLA and disability benefits are both tax exempt and disregarded as income. ie they do not count as earned money because they are purely designed to cover the disadvantages and costs of a disability.

so logically speaking a war disablement pension would be a disability benefit.

so being a disability benefit means it is disregarded for council tax benefit, housing benefit and job seekers allowance/incapcity calculation purposes. JUST AS OTHER DISABILITY BENEFITS ARE.

However, that is NOT the reality of what happens. The application of the rules is completely inconsistant. For example most county councils disregard war pensions when calculating council tax benefit yet the Job centre will INCLUDE it when calculating JSA so your benefit is reduced, yet at the same time they will count the pension as a disability benefit and hence making you inelegible for DLA.

The point is the pension is either and unearned income for benefits purposes or a disability benefit and hence disregarded. they cant just make it up as they go along!!!

In financial terms when unemployed many ex-forces people are worse off than civvy equivilents with similar disability due to the way the job centre is inconsistant in deciding what counts. Im relatively lucky compared to some of the severely disabled ex-forces guys who have been right royally fucked over.

Isaac.Hunt

But the Job Centre is providing the 'living money' (ie food, utilities) the local authority provides any money relating to housing/council tax, it's a different system so the rules are bound to differ. When you receive an amount as a pension it is designed to cover your living costs, so food, bills, etc. To qualify for Job seekers allowance (or more applicable to most disabled persons would be employment support allowance) without it being subject to an income assessment would be to allow an extra 'set' of living costs for an individual who already receives it in some form (though I dare say the rates on each would be too low for many). Are you saying that there is no means of apportioning your pension as to allow the monies for 'living pension' as it were and care/mobility to be differentiated?

An individual on Middle rate care DLA and who receives ESA at the work related activity group rate (as the chances of getting in the support group are extremely low nowadays) are £65.45 for ESA + £25.95 Work capability component alongside £47.80 middle rate care. That's £139.20 a week. If you are getting more than you would qualify when totting it up (I'm just using middle rate care as an example here as I guess it's moot to guess what you might be eligible for as a lot of DLA claims are coming out aside from expectations) then you are better off.

A lot of people seem to think disabled (civilians) are rolling in money left right and centre when many of them simply aren't, especially with the costs of care rising.

I can only guess that your problem is the inability of the pension to be split and apportioned between care/mobility needs (should be disregarded) and living costs/allowance (which is essentially what ESA is for everyone else...so should be income assessed with the remainder of the pension) or the job centres inability to accept whatever split there is deemed to be?

Rsmat

iTrader: (2)

1 word...... "SHIT"

Psycho Warren

iTrader: (5)

pretty much same as JSA and incapcity rates just renamed ESA.
most of the genuine ones are not well off. its only usually benefit cheats who are well off or doley scummers who play the system. Many disabled people dont know the system well enough to get what they are entitled to or dont have the energy to fight them.
Thats if it should be split. The very fact there is an inconsistancy between the administration of HB/CTB and JSA/DWP benefits when on paper they are supposed to be using the same income assessment criteria!! Plus the fact that the DWP were indecisive and picking and choosing what the pension counted as when it suited them.

For example, when i was unemployed I was assessed to see which benefit i was entitled to. The system said that my disability pension was too high to recieve any ESA, HB or CTB. I was advised by medical staff, as quite ill at the time, to claim DLA, which i did to fulfil middle rate care criteria before then being told that because i recieved the disability pension i would only be able to claim DLA on the balance left after taking off the pension. Funnily enough i got zero.

My pension works out at £155 per week. lets see what id get on benefits.

Rent LHA rate: £80
Council Tax: £21
JSA/ESA: £65
Total £166

Thats ignoring DLA.

That quite clearly shows i am already £11 a week worse off than a civilian in identical employment and housing situation.

It gets worse if you take into account disability. Bear in mind the medical assessment put me on middle rate care at that time (almost 2 years ago now!!).

Claiming the DLA

Living benefits £166 (as above)
DLA middle care £47
work capability £26
Total £239

so on that basis i would have been £84 a week worse off than an equivilent civilian!!

So quite how the jobcentre can claim the pension was too high to claim benefits or DLA is beyond me!!

Luckily my disability is not physical and i have recovered to an extent so i dont need the money

Now remember there are a lot of ex-forces a lot more disabled than me with no hope for a recovery. What concerns me is are these people also being fucked over and shortchanged by a benefit system that picks and chooses what the forces pension counts as when it suits them so they can pay the lease benefit regardless of the injustice that causes???

Some one with disability XYZ and capability to work XYZ should recieve exactly the same total benefits to live on regardless of wether civilian or ex-forces.

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

Hearing stories like this makes me wonder why i get out of bed for in the morning. All i seem to do is work to pay ny debt off. Stories like this really piss me off.

dojj

iTrader: (3)

Becuase you are a decentbloke who doesn't take the piss that's why you got out of bed this morning. If I was in warrens position I'd be aiming the money and getting the pension paid into his twin brothers account.

vaughant

iTrader: (1)

Bad news that warren,you seem like a top bloke to be fair and it makes my no help from the government to start up a business a little tame now!mental illness is a horrible thing and I'm glad you got/are getting over it (only going by what you've put in the sig!!!),my mother has suffered from it for years and it's very frustrating as an onlooker,but she's a million times better now. Whilst I don't agree with a lot of what issac says as it's a bit too pc for me I must say that he's correct in saying it's not wholly a racial thing as I know tons of scroungers who are White and live a lifestyle that I'd never be able too.one couple we know,never worked,have just got 2 i phone 4's, 32gb,that's over a grands worth of phones,but their kids do have ADHD etc!!!!

Psycho Warren

iTrader: (5)

its not me i feel sorry for vaughant. theres people a lot worse off than me disability wise who cant fight for themselves and get screwed.

the racial thing is irrelevant. we should be pissed off even if that family was CHAVs. Its the principle of it. As you say its a fucking joke that the scrounger family you mention can afford top of the range this and that while supposedly living on benefits. Makes you wonder how much of the ADHD disability money is going towards the actual costs of the kids care?? and who will suffer an likely end up worse, commit crimes and get locked up at more cost to society?? the kids of course.

Isaac.Hunt

The irony is that I've never once in my life been called p.c. before now, lol.

The system fails a lot of people and should be sorted out to give more to people who do need it. The difficulty with mental health problems especially is quite huge. It is horrendous to be a sufferer of mental health problems, but they don't cause symptoms that are easily measured which means genuine claimants are often sidelined (it's not like having an x ray with fractured bits clearly showing). The same if you have a genuinely bad back, why would you claim to be made to feel like a layabout. I know of a few people who just will not claim what they should be entitled to for fear of being branded a scrounger. They just struggle along with a bad back or MH problems they could do with the help with. Not in the spirit of the idea of the support for people. Especially DLA as it is designed to help with the extra costs of having extra needs, so working people can get it too. Except very few do claim. Then there's the argument that when potentially incorrect decisions pop up with regards to the new ESA system (seemingly less so for DLA but it still happens) the people most disadvantaged are the ones least likely to appeal the decisions on the basis their mental or physical health can't cope with the stress. So the people appealing are the few who want to pursue the right decision (few, really...and they often end up unwell through it) or those a bit less ill (thus allowing them to handle the stress) or people who aren't ill at all (hardly going to make their made up condition worse).

Back to warren....I agree with you. My main annoyance about the non payment of DLA (to anyone who should qualify) is that it is to support the problems/added costs someone has that are a result of their disability. So someone on benefits, someone working for minimum wage or a high rate taxpayer can all claim (and so they should, as they still have extra costs). So means testing the only non means tested lifetime disability benefit is very unfair. God knows why they don't scrap the portion of the pension used for care/mobility and let you claim DLA so you could have a proper like for like assessment for other things. As currently they seem to be boxing together your living/disability portions and then using them both against you.

It's a real shame that disability benefits are not assessed and administered primarily by the hospital consultants concerned as they would be much better placed to forward people for help. Arguments about inconsistancy of awards exists now as the assessment drs/nurses differ in understanding of particular conditions anyway. Much better to have a psychiatrist assess MH needs than someone who's done 4 backs, 3 bad legs, MS, CFS and kidney failure the same day.

Psycho Warren

iTrader: (5)

that would require the DWP to make a firm decision, which is not in its financial interests to make!! The problem is the forces do not seperate a invaliding pension into disability related componant and a "jobseeking/maintenance" because thats not how they see it.

For invaliding the pension is supposed to be compensation for the disability and the impact on your ability to work, loss of career etc etc. They then convert that into financial figure to give you a monthly cash figure if your disablement is considered high enough or a gratuity if its a low figure.

In essence its in the MoD's eyes "injury compensation" because the pension term is confusing to all!! (also hence why theyve replaced the "war pension" scheme with "armed forces compensation" scheme to avoid confusion and bring into line with civilian practice).

the irony is that injury compensation is disregarded for benefits so youd think forces disability which they try and claim is "compensation" would be the same!!

Now obviously as the forces compensation is in many cases both a lump sum payout and also a monthly payment, so would make sense for the compensation payment to stand as per civilian equivilents and the monthly payment to be a portion of the DLA aspect (depending on amounts).

But that would require common sense and rational action from the DWP

dojj

iTrader: (3)

so essentially it's the same as pensioners having too much savings so they've been deemed able to fund their resiential home fee's rather than partying all their lives and getting them for free?

Psycho Warren

iTrader: (5)

similar dojj but its like saying one lot of pensioners get it for free as there savings dont count yet another group of pensioners whove got the same savings have to pay. And in some cases the rich folk get it free but the poor people have to pay

ie the systems a fuck up

a more accurate description would be to claim for benefits and the job centre saying your already claiming when in reality your not getting it (or getting much less than the benefits rate )

so systems still a fuck up