Quotes from Hansard re: DLA/PIP
"We estimate that approximately 80,000 people who claim disability living allowance and live in residential care will be affected by the measure to cease paying the mobility component in Great Britain from October 2012."
Lord Freud (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Welfare Reform), Work and Pensions; Conservative) 9th December
"My Lords, under Article 4 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, we are required to consult with disabled people on all decisions and policies that affect them."
Lord Freud (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Welfare Reform), Work and Pensions; Conservative) 13th December (whole discussion worth reading)
"There are other perverse consequences of the Government's measures. One of the most glaring is the removal of the DLA mobility component from people who live in state-funded residential care. It will cost local authorities money once their mobility needs are assessed. The money must come from the social care budget, so the council will have to further tighten the eligibility criteria, leaving more disabled and older people to fend for themselves, draining their means and exhausting their family members. Did the Government take this into account when they decided to remove the DLA mobility component? The decision was based on wrong assumptions, and it is telling that disabled people were not involved in making it.
Another measure is the closure of the ILF to new applicants, with the resulting expectation that local authorities will take up the slack. In practice, local authorities are prepared to fund their part of a care package, which would have been matched with ILF funding, but they are not prepared to increase it to take account of the closure of the ILF to new applicants. For example, a disabled man in his 30s living in Buckinghamshire would have received a care package of around £600 a week had the ILF still been open to new applications. Buckinghamshire County Council has decided that it is unable to increase its funding beyond £340 a week-a long way short of what the man would have received with ILF as well. As a result, he now has to manage without night-time care."
Baroness Wilkins (Labour)
"This Government believe that the best way of dealing not only with the deficit but with the future way of managing services and taking people's lives forward is to bring in what we are calling "localism", which is to devolve absolutely everything that we can from the centre to the local. Many people have said it before-many Governments have said it, and I am going to say it again-but this time it will happen. When noble Lords see the decentralisation and localism Bill, they will understand that everything-the decisions that affect all our lives-will go from the centre and be dealt with by the local. Local authorities will work with local social enterprise, local and voluntary organisations, other local public bodies and the health service to put their services into place and to have access to all the money that would have been at the centre-certainly in terms of local government money. This is a huge transference of funds and responsibilities.
To many of the questions that I have been asked today, which will be in Hansard for people to look at, the answer is: do not look back to central government for the answers because they will not be there. They will have to come from local government, from relationships with local government and the working from there of how the money will be spent and under what conditions. That is a big responsibility that is being handed down."
and
"There are currently two mismatched systems for assessing the needs of disabled people and I think the measures are being looked at. The two systems do carry the potential for duplication and so that needs to be assessed."
Baroness Hanham (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Communities and Local Government; Conservative) 9th Dec
"The effect of the measure is that people who live in state funded residential care homes will cease to be paid the mobility component of disability living allowance (DLA) after 28 days. While these residents will not be paid DLA, they will retain an underlying entitlement to the benefit and it will be reinstated if they leave the care home providing they continue to satisfy the conditions of entitlement. The planned implementation date is October 2012. The change will not apply to residents who meet the full costs of the care home themselves; they will continue to be paid any care or mobility components of disability living allowance they are entitled to. The change will affect around 80,000 people."
Maria Miller (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Disabled People), Work and Pensions; Basingstoke, Conservative)
"Local authority contracts with care homes will cover services to meet a resident's assessed needs. This will cover activities of daily living which may include providing access to doctors, dentists and local services such as libraries and banks. In addition, care homes are required where practicable to promote the independence, participation and community involvement of their residents."
Maria Miller (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Disabled People), Work and Pensions; Basingstoke, Conservative)
I'd query whether this would extend to social activities - can people with disabilities expect care homes to cover the full cost of travelling to social events. If not, isn't this charge removing choice from people (i.e. they will only cover costs to the library, but not on a evening date). If so, is there a limit to which this will be covered? Will the care home pay mobility cost trip to France?
Note the "where practicable" - who gets to decide what is practicable and what isn't?
Also of interest:
"To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many upheld appeal cases relating to disability living allowance that were a result of (a) administrative and (b) procedural errors made by (i) government departments and (ii) local authorities there have been in each month of 2010 (A) in the West Midlands and (B) nationally."
Jim Cunningham (Coventry South, Labour)
"The first-tier tribunal-social security and child support does not hold the information requested as there is no business need or benefit to do so. The information can be provided only at a disproportionate cost by manually checking each individual case file. In addition, the first-tier tribunal (social security and child support) destroys appeal files six months after the conclusion of a case, so, for the majority of the period requested by the hon. Member, information is no longer available."
Jonathan Djanogly (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (HM Courts Service and Legal Aid), Justice; Huntingdon, Conservative)
(from: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2010-12-21a.31511.h&s=disability )
I find it odd that this information is not kept. I would have thought it would be a basic efficiency measure - how often is the first assessment right, as a measure of whether costs could be saved by having more qualified people/more appropiete people do interveiws etc. Especially wanting to know whether there are any particular offices with massively low/high overturned at appeal rates.
"For example, how can he justify the percentage changes announced last week to the local authority specific grants for learning disabilities, Sure Start and One to One tuition? The most deprived 10th of local authorities will see a drop-minus 12%-whereas the wealthiest decile will see an increase of more than 24%. How is that fair or progressive?"
Christopher Leslie (Nottingham East, Labour)
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