Attendance Allowance to Be Abolished

Signed. I suffer with chronic back pain and receive AA. My husband also receives it as he has a heart condition. We would have no quality of life if this was taken away from us as every penny of our AA is used for transport, car, cleaner. I couldnt imagine our local council covering the cost of all this, nor being able to give us the quality of life we have now.

sad

The government has frozen all working age benefits this year.

www.disabilitynewsservice.com/anger-at-osbornes-working-age-benefits-freeze/

Pension goes up by 2.9%.

Galen I fully understand that there will be some form of consultation. I want to make my view known now. This government has introduced wide ranging changes to the social security system in this country and in most cases, consultation appeared to be an academic exercise. It's part of the process, but as we've seen for example with the so called Bedroom Tax, the government can and does take no notice of opinions that contradict its own position.

Abolishing Attendance Allowance is a prime example of shifting from a fixed amount of money paid to those who meet the criteria, to a percentage of an overall budget for cash strapped local government to manage. The control of how the money is spent transfers from individuals and their families, to bureaucratic organisations subject to decreasing budgets and with conflicting priorities.

This proposal is a perfect way of the government providing local government with extra funds to deliver their existing statutory social care responsibilities. Councils are already forced to apply the national needs assessment process for social care in a way that severely limits access. Inevitably that's what will happen to AA. But I'm sure you know this. I would rather AA became taxable (would raise £1.4.billion), or the existing - although not yet fully tested - Personal Independence Payment (PIP) benefit extended to those over 65 (saving about £2 billion).

It's also worth mentioning that until now, the Conservative party had ruled out reform of AA. The 2010 Conservative manifesto explicitly promised to protect AA, and in 2015 the party said it would ‘maintain all the current pensioner benefits…for the next parliament’, without mentioning AA by name.

As AA is only paid to people age over 65, isn't it a pensioner benefit?

Please sign the petitions

Don't Abolish Attendance Allowance
Stop the government scrapping Attendance Allowance (AA)

I find it quite strange that the government wants pensioners to stay in their own homes for as long as possible, yet is trying to stop them having enough money to live at home for longer.
At the same time, there is going to be a crisis in care homes and in assisted living.
On the Ageuk website, there is a campaign about pensioner poverty and another about the care crisis.

www.ageuk.org.uk/money-matters/claiming-benefits/claiming-benefits-older-people-campaign/lilys-story--end-pensioner-poverty/

Many older people do not know that they are entitled to attendance allowance.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/14/rachel-watt-sleep-wheelchair-austerity-social-care

This story makes me feel ashamed to be British.
This is why we need to stop cuts to disability benefits, whatever they are.

Signed

If it's only at the consultation stage then now is the time to jump up and down and shout 'leave it alone'

Signed

Anya you're absolutely right. This is exactly the right time to make as much fuss and noise as possible. Any later and plans to make this a reality will be too far down the line to be easily reversed.

I hope neither my OH or I need to use this, as I'm sure do most people. But that shouldn't stop us making our views known!

Good point about pensioner benefits wilmak, but pension age now not 65, by the time this would take effect it will be age 68! I have signed and shared.

You're right about 65. I will get my State pension when I'm 67 in 2020.

I still hope people will sign the petitions though.

Signed. Your link to the young woman in the wheelchair was frightening DJ. This could happen to any of us at any time. Google and Facebook tax could go a lot towards this.

I've signed the petition. Changes will not affect us as we both receive AA now, but that's not the point. I don't see how giving the money instead to local councils will solve anything. As others have pointed out, the money can be spent on what you choose, on paying for things that you used to do yourself, with ease. Keeping the car on the road, paying for mobility and independence. We've just paid off the car loan, car now belongs to us. As it's only 3 years old it may be the last car we we ever buy. We pay for window cleaning and gardening. We're about to have our bathroom completely re-done to make it mobility-friendly, with a walk-in shower, non-slip floor, the lot. AA has the advantage of being non-means-tested and non-taxable. We'd not get it if it was means-tested. And giving money to the local councils? How would that work? As long as we have all our marbles we don't want someone from the council coming in to tell us how to live our lives.

I find it so sad that we are the 5th richest country in the world but we are cutting benefits to the most vulnerable, which is undoubtedly what will happen if this legislation goes through. Local councils wont be able afford to pick up the tab, and public services in my area are being decimated as it is.
My mum gets AA and couldn't manage without. She's 91, lives alone and has just had hip replacement. Roll on old age eh!
I knew nothing about the proposed legislation until read it here, so thanks.
Have signed petition and am now busy raising awareness.

One or two posters have pointed out that it is in the consultation stage only and that existing claimants will continue to receive it.

And what about future claimants, roses? Do they not matter?

It needing saying again that existing claimants will continue to receive it.
Also that nothing is decided or concrete at present regarding future claimants.

Saying that because it has been presented as a done deal, and it isn't .

www.carersuk.org/news-and-campaigns/press-releases/carers-uk-seriously-concerned-by-potential-changes-to-vital-benefit

So what do you suggest, roses? That we all just wait and see until the Attendance Allowance has disappeared before our eyes?
Then we can complain about it, can we? When it's a concrete fact?
As said previously, the DWP hardly falls over itself telling people about the benefits to which they are entitled .

I know my mum won't be affected but I am concerned about future claimants and what sort of selfish society we are becoming. After all each of us is only a serious accident, or illness away from becoming dependant, even if not pensioners.

Exactly, Lazigirl. A month before my husband's 50th birthday, he fell off a ladder and fractured his spine. He never worked again.
If DLA hadn't been available I do not know how we would have managed.
The rules have changed so much since then, he might not even get it now.
It's because of the society we have become; we do not care so much now for the disabled.

I don't think that's true djen ( the society we have become) at all. IF the allowance is stopped ( it isn't yet remember!) and the money given to the council, then the council may well hold this money to provide for the needs of disabled people, but only giving it to help those in financial need.
by all means sign petitions if you want to, but find out all the facts first.
there are sometimes great outcries about something, before much is known.

Those who have the money in the bank can do without this allowance,not sure how it is handled at the moment, but not all old people are hard up( far from it in lots of cases) so I would hope it was only given out for real need.

When MiL was still managing to live at home her AA was £25 a week (we're going back a bit in time here) and that was enough for her to have someone come in a couple of times a week to help her with tasks she couldn't manage safely herself.

Yes, the family did help out with garden and housework too, but we lived 120 miles away and her son was in poor health (and later died) and her other DiL had a full time job and her own mother who needed help.

I would say that MiL managed to stay in her own home for a further 2-3 years before she had to come to us for the last few months of life.

rosesarered: one of the great advantages of AA is that it is neither means-testable nor taxable. There may be some valid argument for giving it only to those in greatest need, but who determines who they are? Many older people are really resistant to the idea of means-testing. This may be historical - the means-test of the 1930s - or it may simply be down to an idea of privacy. It is no one else's damn business whether I have money in the bank, or not. The point is, there are physical needs which preclude doing those things we used to do with ease, and which we now have to pay someone to do.I would really resist anyone from the council coming in to tell me what I should do and how to live my life. I had a bit of that in the couple of days I spent on a care of the elderly ward at New Year. I had a long interview with a social worker - had been referred to her without my knowledge or consent - and physios who wanted me to take a zimmer frame home with me. Having all my marbles, I put them all off.

Sorry margrete can't agree with you. It IS somebody's 'damn business' how much money you have in the bank! The taxpayers.
If you have enough money to pay somebody to come and help you do some jobs in the house, then you should pay for it.
If not, and you are frail and need help, the Council should step in for you, and maybe that will happen.In good economic times, there was money for all kind of things, now there isn't and we are coping with a much larger population, so people with money should spend it where they need it.