If it reads like a raid, if it looks like a raid, and smells like raid then it is raid! To be more specific a £10bn raid. Who needs good old fashion bank robbing when you can just rely on NL to swipe money from the poor.
NL is considering converting Attendance Allowance and the care component of disability living allowance into discretionary social care grants.
But all is not well with this attempted robbery as it has caused ructions in Whitehall:
Recriminations are flying between government departments over the handling of the issue. The Department of Health, which has led the development of the green paper, stands accused of getting policy and politics badly out of line and of failing to spot the potential for deep controversy. Health ministers say they have always made it clear that the document would set out tough choices.
Ah, those words again, ‘tough choices’, similar to ‘thinking the unthinkable’. The buzz word in all of these proposals is ‘personalisation’ as, on the surface, NL claim it about ‘choice’ (ah, another favourite loose word). But dig deeper, and this like everything else about the attacks on the welfare benefits system is ideologically driven. Lets be clear, it isn’t about real choices for people about planning their care, it is neoliberalism.
What stands out is the word ‘discretionary’. And that the converting of these benefits into discretionary grants would be taken charge of by local government. Sooner or later some of the money will be absorbed into the budget of each council. That is why the Local Government Association started pushing the idea last year in a discussion paper. The losers will be people facing money problems as a result of their disabilities. The winners will be the private companies involved in the “personalisation” of social services and well to do Council Tax payers having a bit more money for the nice things in life.
Any discretionary system will mean people with disabilities having to go cap-in-hand to their local authority. The objectionable and oppressive term “handicapped” comes from this. If you want get ready to tug your forlock and say thank you to the nice man from the council. Better though to fight this vile proposal tooth and nail.
The one way where people have choices is through awarding benefits, where they can control their own money. These proposals (though the green paper has been delayed!) are nothing more than a wholesale raid on the benefits system.
See, as well, Care Support Independence.
Posted by harpymarx 
