Category Archives: ukcuts

Paralympians express fears over disability living allowance plans

September 3, 2012   Carers, disability, ukcuts

Athletes say that coalition proposals to replace benefit could threaten their independence and undermine key Games legacy

 

Lady Tanni Grey-Thompson warned in May about DLA cuts, and other Paralympians have now spoken out.

A group of British Paralympians have expressed their fears over government plans to cut disability living allowance (DLA), warning that the benefit is vital to enable them to live independently.

Under coalition welfare reforms, hundreds of thousands of disabled people will lose the allowance when the government replaces DLA with more restrictive personal independence payments (PIP) in 2013.

The Paralympians fear that the potential loss of the benefit, worth between £20 and £131.50 a week, which helps with the extra costs of transport, equipment, care and other specialist needs that disabled people have, could undermine the key legacy issue of the Games – to open up access to sport for disabled people.

The government plans to replace the allowance, which goes to about 3.2 million people at an annual cost of £12.6bn, with personal independence payments (PIP) from 2013. It estimates that up to 500,000 people will lose entitlement to DLA over the next four years as eligibility criteria are tightened and claims reassessed.

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DLA is a lot more than money

September 2, 2012   Arthritis, autism, Carers, ukcuts

The real issue with losing DLA is the validation

Sunday, 2 September 2012

DLA paperwork.  I’m going through the process again because, naturally, auto-immune arthritis has no cure, nor does fibromyalgia…but the goal-posts to what being disabled means has changed and now, unless I’m stuck in bed and cannot even blink, I’m not really disabled anymore.  This is what the new descriptors are doing.  I haven’t got a shade’s chance at midnight in passing this.  My only blessing right now is my son is currently in the clear till 2014…and unless there’s some miracle in autism he’s going to be fine and capable of continuing to receive it; residential status pretty much secures that for him.  I can breathe easy for that, at least.
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Councils urged to replace social workers with non-qualified staff

August 23, 2012   Carers, ukcuts

Money can be saved without hurting quality if councils with high spending on assessments and reviews used more non-professionally qualified staff instead of social workers, says Audit Commission.

Savings of £300m could be made on assessments, the commission says

Mithran Samuel
Thursday 23 August 2012 00:01

Councils have been urged to replace social workers with non-professionally qualified staff in assessments and reviews, on the grounds this can save money without hurting quality.

The recommendation comes in a report today from the Audit Commission, which found that £180m-£310m a year could be saved from annual adult social services spending in England – about 1% to 2% of the total – if councils with relatively high spends on assessments and reviews reduced their costs towards the level of lower spenders.

The biggest potential area of saving was from “changing the mix of staff grades and skills that councils employ” to carry out assessments, by replacing social workers and occupational therapists with social work or OT assistants or other staff without professional qualifications.

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