Help us protect disabled children being hurt by ‘welfare reform’


by Guest    
11:30 am - August 10th 2011

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contribution by Sam Royston

25 national organisations including the Children’s Society, the TUC, Barnardo’s and Action for Children have come together to call for a change in the Government’s plans for a substantial cut to welfare support for disabled children under the new “Universal Credit”.

Sign our petition! The new system will result in many of these children losing up to £1400 per year (£27 per week) compared to the current system – by the time a disabled child reaches 16, this could cost the family £22,000.

In total the Government estimates that 100,000 disabled children would lose out under this change – other estimates suggest the number could be considerably higher.

* * * * * *

Antony Best, 23, from Bradford, is a full-time father after losing his wife to swine flu last winter. He has three children to look after and two of them also have a disability. Casie, 4, has Down’s syndrome, while her eight-month-old brother, Alfie, has cerebral palsy.

Antony is already relying on family and friends to help him out with caring from time to time and his budget is at breaking point. He receives £197 a month from the tax credit and disability allowance systems.

I can spend more than that just getting the basics for the kids, and that is before I have thought about feeding myself, he said.

Any cut to what we survive on now would have a real impact on our living. So many of the things we need every day, like milk for my youngest and nappies, are already more expensive . . . We just about manage.

* * * * * *

£27 is more than half the average family’s food budget – enough to mean the difference between a family meeting their child’s basic needs, and being left simply unable to cope.

The Comprehensive Spending Review announced that £2 billion will be set aside over the next four years for the introduction of the Universal Credit. At a time of strict financial constraints, we believe that the Government cannot justify a commitment to such additional spending, if it fails to support the most vulnerable families with disabled children.

Please:
- sign the petition now and
- promote it on your Facebook, Linked In and Twitter accounts.

We have a one-off opportunity to make a real and important change for disabled children and young people; together we really can make the Government think again on this.

—
Sam Royston is Policy Officer for Family Action.

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Reader comments


1. pagar

Sam

I notice that Action For Children receives around £200 million in public funding.

It has 40 staff earning over £60k and one earning over £150k.

Your own organisation, Family Action, receives around £20 million in public funding and has 4 staff earning over £60k and one earning over £100k.

I can easily understand why you are both opposed to cuts in government spending on disabled children, but wouldn’t it be better if the above funds went directly to….. disabled children?

2. Robert the crip

Nope I will not sign it, and I’m disabled looking after a disabled child, it’s to late where were you when New labour was doing the same.

3. G.O.

Robert – let me get this straight. You think (on the basis of zero evidence, so far as I can see) the author of this post didn’t protest against New Labour policies on disability benefits. And your way of protesting against his imagined inaction is… to refuse to protest against what you see as similar Coalition policies.

Well, that’ll show him. Won’t bother New Labour or the Coalition at all, but hey, Family Action are the real enemy – right?

Pagar – so in your opinion, the solution to every issue a disabled child might face is simply to give them money. They need to find foster parents? Give them some money. They need residential care or schooling? Give them some money. Their families need respite care? Give them some money. I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that they would then simply have to give that money to an organisation providing those services? It’s like some sort of convoluted right-wing money-laudering scheme – giving public money directly to an organisation providing services to disabled children is clearly a wasteful extravagance, but turn that money ‘private’ by passing it through the wallets of individuals and suddenly it’s fair enough.

4. Claire

Amazes me the number of people who somehow imagine that charities can function by just, you know, sending the money direct to the beneficiaries even if they actually need physical help, rather than cash, or are children and really unable to handle the cash themselves.

Like, you know, someone has to actually administrate the charity and the funds raised. And keep track of who has sent money, do the fundraising, maintain the website, get CRB checks done, do the VAT returns, pay the rent for the office, pay the phone bill, look after the volunteers. Get staff in to do these jobs, oversee the office and get a future work plan sorted, or implement the plans decided upon by a management board or steering group. The kind of things a CEO of a commercial company does. But being paid much less.

My partner is in charge of a children’s educational charity but earns less than a qualified teacher (not that I’d resent a teacher’s salary). He occasionally gets comments such as, the money should go to the children, not you. As in ‘here, kids, here’s £XX thousand pounds, organise yourselves a summer camp’!

As long as the information is upfront and above board, I don’t see any problem with larger charities paying staff enough money to enable the charity to get the best workers (and therefore best value). If you object to that, just support smaller charities working out of someone’s front room in their spare time. But I bet most who complain about what they perceive as high salaries in the charitable sector don’t actually donate to charities anyway.

5. Charles Wheeler

Part of David Cameron’s election campaign focused on the idea that he could understand the problems facing families coping with a severely disabled member – which makes the current crackdown on the severely disabled even harder to forgive.

6. pagar

I don’t see any problem with larger charities paying staff enough money to enable the charity to get the best workers (and therefore best value). If you object to that, just support smaller charities working out of someone’s front room in their spare time.

I do.

But the problem is that I have no choice in also funding large charities that pay their staff massive salaries- the government gives them money they have taken from me in tax.

And then they have the effrontery to complain when that funding is threatened and lobby government for more.

7. Leon Wolfson

@6 – Councils put services out to tender, and Charities took them and ran them with more care, skill and at lower costs than commercial companies. That’s what really gets your goat, isn’t it?

Of course slashing them is easier than if the services had been in-house, and of course complaints about cuts to important services are valid.

8. Jim

Pagar @ 6

But the problem is that I have no choice in also funding large charities that pay their staff massive salaries- the government gives them money they have taken from me in tax.

Have you considered topping yourself, thus stopping the obvious distress has caused you? I mean the very thought that a child may be given a wheelchair…

…How do you manage to sleep at night.

Honest to God, fucking moaning about EVERYTHING, what a waste of a life. Is there nothing you won’t just let go by? Charities need good staff to work and they need to recruit from the best pool of talent available. Why is that so difficult to understand?


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
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