As far as I am aware nothing has been announced on DLA, apart from the
plan
announced in the spending review, to withhold the mobility component from
people living in residential care.
Under the previous government there were however, proposals to re-locate
the
care component of DLA from individual allowances to become part of the
social care budget that could be accessed by local authorities. I am not
aware of these proposals becoming concrete plans beyond Green paper talk
yet
but it is likely that this will be a fight to come
It should be remembered that the original policy remits of these benefits
were to address the extra costs of living with a disability and certainly
not a simple care allowance. . The government of the day came under
pressure
to introduce these benefits after the famous OPCS survey identified
multiple
sources of increased expenditure of living with a disability. The
eligibility criteria for the Care Component has, over the years, drifted
the understanding of this benefit from addressing the extra costs of
disability to a benefit focussing on care. This, however, is a completely
incorrect interpretation of the policy pressures for the introduction for
these benefits. Care was only one of the multiple living costs identified.
This is after all why it was called disability Living Allowance as opposed
to the earlier Attendance allowance. Attendance Allowance was branded
for
people over 65 only as for this age group it suited the government to
present this as a largely care element. The OPCS survey identified heavy
lifelong costs of living with a disability which the government had to
respond to. So effectively Attendance allowance was re-branded as
disability
Living Allowance for people under 65 to provide politicians of the time
with
a argument that they had responded to the poverty caused by living with a
disability identified in the survey. Nowadays it suits politicians to
completely ignore this original policy context and pretend that DLA was
after all simply introduced as a Care Allowance. It is important to remind
them that this is simply not true . The continuing issues of increased
costs
of disability living, that the benefit was designed to respond to , are
as
present today as they were then.
By the way, Have you seen the disability Now article ?
http://www.disabilitynow.org.uk/latest-news2/news-focus/concern-grows-over-d
la-future
Although sadly it does not discuss the need to remind politicians of the
original policy remit of DLA, it is nevertheless interesting.
Regards
David Griffith
-----Original Message-----
From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of
ANDY COLLINS
Sent: Monday, 25 October 2010 16:48
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [access-uk] Incapacity and DLA
Hi all -
Don't want to get a thread going on here, but have been searching the
online press, trying to get clarification as to whether incapacity and DLA
benefits are now to be means tested, following Ozzie Osborne's spending
review.
I know that Incapacity is going to be replaced, it's the means testing I
want to know about.
Can anybody give me a link where I can get some answers to such questions?
No good looking at the .gov website as yet, so maybe this info isn't yet
available? Anybody know? -
Andy
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