SICK AND DISABLED TO BEAR BRUNT OF WELFARE CUTS

As the details of the spending review become available, it is clear that much of the Government’s plan to reform welfare is to be financed by attacking the sick and disabled. Their benefits are to be time-limited and means-tested. In addition, local authority care services are to be reduced to only the extremely vulnerable. How will extreme vulnerability be defined? How will local authorities rationalise the current massive inequities in levels of service provision? And what impact will such radical changes have in the lives of the sick, disabled and, where they exist, their carers?

I am always amused to hear those who say that they know no-one who chooses to be on benefits. They need to get out more. I know plenty. And they are people have accessed benefits by the manipulation of the system to their own advantage. They are agents of their own success, not passive recipients caught in a trap. I don’t blame them. They have simply made the rational choice to conform to the requirements of the financial incentives available to them. More like tax avoidance than tax evasion.  But just as the rich will always find ways to avoid the tax that the rest of us have to pay, the benefits culture will adjust to meet whatever requirements are placed on it to ensure the continuation of state funding. It is hard to imagine the civil servants designing a system smart enough to end practices that have been perfected in some families over three and more generations.

And that leaves the real sick and disabled that these sickness and disability benefits were designed to help. They are the ones who will be vulnerable to being pushed out of benefits. They are also likely to be losing their local authority services. They already have to pay high charges for service in many local authorities. One Occupational Therapist told me that her authority was charging disabled people 80% of the cost of their stair-lift, an item that can cost £5000, and making the user responsible for funding a maintenance contract. These charges will inevitably rise further.

That same local authority already charges disabled people £20 for providing a disabled parking badge. That cost will no doubt rise, and the great irony is that it has to rise so that wealthy 60 year olds can continue to receive their winter fuel and their free bus pass. The sick and disabled will pay a high price for the maintenance of the universal principle in benefits.