The Budget

Can I just point out the reasoning behind the proposed PIP alterations.
If you take for example, a person who has had a leg injury. They are otherwise hale and hearty and capable of working.
They would score under the present system.
Need to sit to prepare a meal 2
Need a raised toilet seat or bar to help them rise from the toilet 2
Need a stool or long handled brush to help them bath or shower 2
Need an aid or to sit on the edge of the bed to dress 2
This gives them the 8 points needed for standard rate PIP.
A more severely disabled person would need more help with these activities and presumably help with more activities.
The halving of the points awarded for toileting and dressing would therefore not affect them.
Please note, mobility is scored separately and therefore not affected.

Add!
Once they have these aids, what need is there for ongoing finance.
Under DLA all activities that could be performed with help of simple easily available aids were disregarded.

The finance is not just for buying aids.
In fact my husband had them given free.
The finance is because of all the other problems that disability causes, such as the length of time it takes a disabled person to do everything an able-bodied person takes for granted, and the amount of effort and pain that goes into doing everything
A person with a leg injury would not have got DLA because it did not kick in (sorry) until six months as far as I remember. Before that it would just have been incapacity benefit, or whatever it is now.

That's the point Dj
I agree. Most people get these AIDS free and they wouldn't have got DLA. However under the present rules for PIP they do qualify and get a continuing benefit.
If your husband had been on PIP he would probably have been on the enhanced rate and therefore better off than under PIP

By a leg injury, a meant a permanent one, not a temporary injury

Incapacity benefit is now ESA.

On radio 4 now

trisher you are spot on - but I think the youngsters have already latched on, judging by what my brother's children say.

Galen, Please could you explain "If your husband had been on PIP he would probably have been on the enhanced rate and therefore better off than under PIP" Did you mean one of the PIPs to be DLA, because I'm confused.

I understand what you're saying about these aids being one-off expenses and it seems to make sense. However, if it really is as simple as that, why on earth didn't a DWP spokesperson (or IDS himself) explain it as you have done?

I had read about it. There was a link on a thread previously. It made sense to me when I read it.

Sorry my error. I meant mr Djokovic would probably have been better off under PIP.
It is as simple as that with the aids. A lot of people are awarded the standard rate of PIP on just the fact that they need those aids?

iPad! Djen not some mythical Slav

Lol@the tyranny of iPads!

OK, so rather than face a backbench rebellion which led to withdrawing the changes, why didn't Osborne, IDS or somebody from the DWP just call a press conference and say "OK! You've got this all wrong. We're not impoverishing the disabled. This is how it works..." and explain what you have?

Heaven knows. I'm not a idiot genius, like those in government.

I think people have got the situation all mixed up. There are a host of specific benefits. PiP is only one of them. I suppose its easier to just assume that all people with every sort of disability are being penalised.

Nobody assumes that all people with every sort of disability are being penalised.
However, there are some facts that support the idea that many of them are.

www.disabilitynewsservice.com/category/disability-benefits/

Lots of information on this website for those who do not bury their heads in the sand.

Why do you think IDS has gone to all that trouble to hide the results of the report into the DWP?

He wasn't the first person to resign. This person has resigned from the Tory party.

"But probably the most embarrassing criticism for Osborne came from disabled campaigner Graeme Ellis, who has voted Tory for nearly 50 years and until this week ran the Conservative Disability Group’s (CDG) website.

Ellis quit the party in disgust at Osborne’s budget, leaving a message on the CDG home page saying: “This website is temporarily closed owing to Disability Cuts.”

Ellis, who runs a benefits advice service, told the Daily Mirror: “How can I morally represent clients when I remain in an organisation that’s doing these cuts?" "

From this article

www.disabilitynewsservice.com/osbornes-budget-sparks-anger-fear-and-a-resignation/

Lots of other uncomfortable facts on the website.

It's complicated and not simply 'doing down' the disabled.The more severely disabled may well be better off.
The mistake was slinging it in with the budget speech which made it seem like cutting the money and help for everyone with a disability.
The other mistake was a government spokesperson not explaining fully before general outrage took over.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/17/osborne-tax-cuts-for-wealthy-create-32bn-headache-resolution-foundation

The Resolution Foundation is a non-partisan thinktank.

"The DWP’s defence has been that it is reasserting the original purpose of PIP was to provide support to those with the greatest, most complex needs.

They don’t seem to recognise — or care — that this is a moving target. An effective system of disability benefits establishes objective terms for assessment and provides assistance to anyone who meets those terms.

If the number increases, because for whatever reason more people meet the criteria, spending should increase.

Instead, the DWP endorses an inhumane race for the bottom, in which a person suffering from a severe disorder causing poor balance should not receive the car that allows her to work, simply because she’s better off than someone else who can’t walk at all.

This behaviour is not unusual for this Government. It closely mirrors the approach taken to social housing, where a tiny pool of council homes are divided among the abjectly desperate, while everyone else is forced into unaffordable private rented accommodation. "

From this article in Leftfootforward.

leftfootforward.org/2016/03/the-disability-benefits-cut-shows-the-governments-flagrant-disregard-for-evidence/

PIP was poorly thought out at the beginning and the descriptors were badly worded and in cases ambiguous. It has not been helped by varying decisions by upper tribunal members who cannot agree amongst themselves as to the correct interpretation of the descriptors.
I do not feel that decision by awarding points is a good or fair system. Also the medical input into PIP is minimal. The Health Care Professionals are supposed to be trained but!
You end up with a paramedic giving an opinion on a psychiatric case!
In a lot of ways I'm glad to have to retire next year.
I can then devote myself to harmless pursuit such as crochet and murder.

find a way of combining the two, Galen ?

knitting needles may be more effective Galen

A serial knitter?

Watch out Happy Valley

Got to crochet a BLUE BLANKET darling daughter is expecting an infant of the male sex!