Here's to the Carers...

S'cuse me for being a little technical here.

No great secret I get Disability Living Allowance. I'm on Middle Rate Care, lower rate mobility. Feel free to check out how much that is on .gov.uk. The newish coalition government are going to try and mess about with that by introducing something new called PIPS. Personal independence Allowance.

It will, on the face of it, give people more control over financing their own care. Everyone who is on DLA now will be called in by a a commercial organisation employed by the present government for a twenty minute assessment of their needs, with a primary motive of 'getting people off benefits' and into work. About 380,000 people?

One problem with that. On DLA, you can be a company director on a million quid a week, and still receive the help. Because it isn't 'means tested'. Neither is PIPS apparently. So how that works, confuses the heck out of me. More so, there's already an option where someone disadvantaged by their disability can say where they get their care from, and how they pay from it from their benefit.

But there are hidden victims, and that's Carers. As things stand at the moment, a Carer, nominated by someone who receives Middle or Higher Rate Care or Higher rate Mobility, gets about £57 a week. But for that, they have to be a full time, day and night carer. Work out the hourly rate for that! BUT they can not be a carer and work!

But that's not the half of it. As you can probably imagine, because the person with disability often needs full time care, and therefore needs a full time carer, neither is able to work - so they end up on Income Support :( .

As carers allowance has always been classed as 'income', those carers have their allowance reduced to a few pence over £25 a week. For caring 24/7.

Pure Craziness.