With many thanks to Bob Williams-Findlay.

PERSONAL INDEPENDENCE PAYMENT is a welfare benefit introduced by the Tory led Coalition government and designed to replace the DISABLED LIVING ALLOWANCE. Like DLA, it has been packaged to help with the extra costs of living with a long-term health condition or a disability. I want to offer a quotation to hang my post on. The PIP Assessment Guide (Updated on 1 May 2016) states:

‘It would not be practical for the assessment to take account of the impact of a health condition or impairment on all everyday activities, nor to seek to include all possible areas where extra costs may be generated.’

This, in my opinion, confirms my view that Lord David Freud is a complete and utter liar! He claimed PIP would have a social approach, then swiftly altered that to saying ‘a bio-psycho-social’ one however this quotation shows neither approach is used. PIP uses a ‘functional loss’ reductionist approach which the UK developed from the Woods’ World Health Organisation ICIDH – long since replaced by the ICF (THE bio-psycho-social approach). PIP’s assessment methodology has been flawed from the start and sticks two fingers up to the approach found with the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People. It therefore means, like DLA, PIP has a focus on the impact of a health condition or impairment on ‘daily living’ and ‘mobility’ – In other words, individuals may be entitled to the daily living component if they need help with things like preparing or eating food, dressing and undressing, or making decisions about money. And individuals may be entitled to the mobility component if they need help going out or moving around.

To fully understand the full oppressive nature of PIP it is necessary to unpack its historical, social and political context; understanding why it was introduced and the consequences – at both macro and micro levels of society. One could simply focus upon thousands of individual stories or as I often do, talk about the supposed purpose and methodology of PIP, both things are important, but doing so wouldn’t adequately address the whole picture.

Historical

Alf Morris first Minister of Disabled People introduced the Mobility Allowance – the forerunner of DLA.

Despite overseeing the introduction of the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) in 1992, Nicolas Scott ultimately became the target for significant criticism from disability campaigners, including his own daughter.

When DLA was introduced in 1992, it covered 1.1 million people, at a cost of around £3 billion. That has since risen to more than £12 billion a year. LCD recently argued Disabled people face costs of an extra 24% on top of normal expenditure.

There were issues with DLA, but the Tories didn’t address these.
Methodology was inadequate with DLA, but PIP’s totally oppressive.
The system began for new claimants in April as Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, pledged to end a “ridiculous” system that gives people lifetime awards. My impairment is for life, so I’d assume the extra cost of living with it and the social consequences would be as well.

Esther McVey, the Conservative Minister for Disabled People, said: “Disability Living Allowance is an outdated benefit introduced over 20 years ago and was very much a product of its time.
“The Personal Independence Payment has been designed to better reflect today’s understanding of disability, particularly to update our thinking on mental health and fluctuating conditions.

“We are introducing a new face-to-face assessment and regular reviews – something missing in the current system. This will ensure the billions we spend on the benefit give more targeted support to those who need it most.”

Mark Lever, Chief Executive of The National Autistic Society, said: “Before anyone had even walked through the door to take the new test, the Department for Work and Pensions had already suggested that successful claimants would drop by 600,000 and spending would fall by a fifth. It smacks of a cost-saving exercise, when it should be a genuine drive to make the system fairer and deliver support to everyone who needs it.

DPAC based upon research argued this was a under-estimation.

Material reality

By October 25, 2013, 92,000 PIP claims outstanding with assessment providers – Atos Healthcare and Capita Health and Wellbeing – almost three times the number expected by the DWP at this stage. The National Audit Office blamed the backlog on the assessment process taking longer than expected.

Frances Ryan said: “Without PIP a disabled person can’t access anything from carer’s allowance to severe disability premium. If that isn’t enough, anyone who is rejected – or bumped down to the standard rate – is also barred from the Motability scheme for an accessible car or powered wheelchair.

According to Motability, who lease cars and powered wheelchairs to the disabled, 3,000 out of 8,000 of their customers who have so far been reassessed have lost their eligibility for the scheme and have therefore had to give up their vehicles. And this could rise to more than 100,000. [March 2015]

Between 400 and 500 adapted cars, powered wheelchairs, and scooters are being taken away from disabled people every week. Independence gone – with a maximum of seven weeks to hand your lifeline back. As an insight into the logic, let alone empathy, in this system, that’s notably less time than it takes to go to appeal or even to get the results of mandatory reconsideration – meaning the DWP’s ruling can be overturned, but the disabled person’s car or wheelchair will already have been taken. (At the last count, 60% of appeals against PIP were successful).

Ideological

PIP is part of the neoliberal agenda – it’s ideological, not about cost-saving in the first instance – redefinition of ‘in need’, new contours around who is ‘deserving’ and forced labour. UNUM, James Parnell, ATOS CAPITA and Maximus are as guilty as Duncan Smith, Freud and Miller et al.

March 2016 there was overwhelming public opposition to the disability benefit cuts put forward by George Osborne in the Budget, a series of polls has revealed.

Cuts to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) confirmed by the Chancellor would have raised £4.4 billion by 2020, by stripping people who use specially adapted appliances of payments. Justin Tomlinson said at the announcement of the cuts that they would make PIP work better – the bog standard ‘double-speak’. It was a small victory when overturned, but the continuation of PIP means Disabled people are being shafted on a massive scale.

With many thank to Gail Ward for sharing this on Facebook:

New PIP Assessors Guide From Sept 1st

Only major changes are Activities 4 and 5.

Activity 4 – need to consider both a bath and a shower and more people will score as you need to be able to access a bath even if you don’t have one.

Activity 5 – back to previous guidance – stomas, catheters and pads are aids and will attract 5B even if the claimant can use them independently.

A disability benefits assessor who was suspended after allegedly posting abusive comments about disabled claimants on Facebook has been sacked.

Capita – which assesses claimants for the government – confirmed the nurse was dismissed two weeks ago.

The Facebook posts were found by Sarah Goldstein, 24, who had been turned down for personal independence payments (PIPs) by the nurse.

Husband Jay Goldstein said he was glad “the right thing” had been done.

Mrs Goldstein, who has fibromyalgia, Raynaud’s phenomenon, and suffers with chronic anxiety, migraines and depression, claimed Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and first applied for PIPs in October 2014.

Mr Goldstein said she had been assessed last year but turned down for PIPs because it was felt she was “making everything up”.

Mrs Goldstein reapplied for PIPs at the end of 2015 and was assessed at her home in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, in March by the nurse.

But the couple’s suspicions were aroused when they found they had been turned down by the nurse on the basis of a number of “falsehoods” in an accompanying report, which has been seen by the BBC.

These included claims that Mrs Goldstein had given birth to 13-month-old daughter AJ naturally. In fact, Mrs Goldstein had a Caesarean and said she was never asked about the birth.

Mrs Goldstein saw the nurse’s name on the report and looked her up on social media “to make sure everything was above board” and discovered the posts.

One, written in July 2014, appears to attack a claimant who had lost two legs as a child and had appeared on a programme about benefits.

The post said he should “get a job fitting carpets” and that she “would like to catapult the scrounger back to…[where] he came from”.

It is believed the nurse started working for Capita a few months before the July post.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for the outsourcing firm said: “We can confirm that the individual in question no longer works for Capita.”

Mr Goldstein, 25, said his wife has had a new assessment and is awaiting the result.

“We are glad that Capita has done the right thing and sacked the nurse,” he said.

“We feel a tiny bit of justice has been done.”

Another response to this, through Facebook.

When I went down the road of the dwp assesment I was turned down as he said I had a firm hand shake! It’s not my hands ……… It’s my legs!!!!! My body my involuntary movements the pain the dizziness the memory loss what more do they want should I be paralysed from the neck down before I am deemed disabled this just makes me want to cry I can’t bear the thought of having to go through the whole thing again with even more non medical incompitant fools another tribunal is iminant I am sure this discrimination! This is what was ruled against in the rights of disabled people how dare these people who have no idea about what we go through each day even try to assess us we should be assessing their qualifications to do the assessment in the first place !!!!

When we shared this post on Facebook yesterday, this was one of the responses.

I was turned down on a DLA renewal because (a) I still had make up on from work (b) I was clean and didn’t smell (c) I managed to answer the door and (d) I had flown to America for work recently, which obviously you couldn’t possibly do if you were disabled in any way.
All over turned at tribunal 13 months later but the DWP even then seemed to think that these things meant I had no mobility problems or any other health problems. The tribunal panel pointed out clearly that all of them were consistent with my claim form, consistent with my condition and possible even with severe disabilities. This sort of thing is truly ridiculous. They expect you to be some sort of immobile smelly potato, it seems.

With many thanks to Benefits And Work.

The Tribunals Service is working towards an online appeal system in which appeals hearings could last for weeks, according to Judge John Aitken, president of the social entitlement chamber which deals with benefits appeals.

The revelation came in a series of email exchanges between a Benefits and Work member and the Tribunals Service.

Our member is challenging the practice of the Tribunals Service of allowing GPs who are registered, but who no longer have a licence to practice, to sit on appeal tribunal panels.

GPs, who are often retired, sit as medical members on tribunals for appeals dealing with benefits including ESA, PIP and DLA.

Our member has had to appeal their ESA decision repeatedly and, on each occasion, has discovered that the doctor on the panel did not hold a licence to practice.

The law allows a ‘registered medical practitioner’ to sit on First-tier and Upper Tribunal panels. The Tribunals Service believes that there is no requirement for such a person to also hold a licence to practice.

They argue that:

“The assessment of appellants is carried out as part of the process of the Tribunal reaching its decision and is not medical practice; there is no diagnosis, prescription of prescribed drugs or delivery of treatment.”

Our member, however, points out that the General Medical Council website includes a detailed guide to The privileges and duties of doctors: UK statutes. The introductory page plainly states:

“Please be aware that, in this context, the terms used to refer to a ‘doctor’ or ‘practitioner’, and in particular, the term ‘registered medical practitioner’, all refer to a doctor who is registered with a licence to practise with the GMC.”

The GMC guide includes sitting on benefits tribunals as one of the privileges that only a registered medical practitioner is allowed.

One of the concerns about allowing GPs without a licence to practise to sit on tribunals is that they are not required to undertake regular training, continuing professional development, in the way that practising doctors are. GPs are required to undertake 50 hours of CPD a year in an effort to ensure that their knowledge remains up-to-date.

Doctors who do not undertake CPD may have very outdated beliefs about many conditions, which may be especially problematic for claimants with conditions such as ME, fibromyalgia or a range of mental health issues.

The correspondence with our member has reached all the way to the top, with a contribution from Social Entitlement President Judge Aitken.

In the course of this correspondence, Judge Aitken revealed that the Tribunals Service is planning to make the appeals process much more “user friendly” by having appeals conducted online over a period of weeks.

The Tribunals Service believes that this will leave claimants feeling less apprehensive and give them the opportunity to raise all the points they wish to, as well as meaning that no travelling will be requited.

The judge acknowledged that many people will need help to use an online system but believes that the experience need be “no more intimidating than shopping online”.

Our member is continuing their battle against the use of GPs without a licence to practice. Meanwhile, we’d be interested to know what you think about the idea of online appeal hearings.

When we shared this post on Facebook,  we received this comment:

The mind boggles. One of the reasons I got turned down was that I carried a handbag And can read a newspaper. Anyone going for assessment don’t carry a bag and if you can walk go extremely slowly and make the assessor wait and whatever you do. Do not move the chair in the room. Sit on it wherever it is placed and if need moving ask the assessor to do it. These were some of the points they made for refusing.

We’re scared, readers, very scared.

Many thanks go to reader Alan Philips who shared his wife’s experience with ATOS in our comments. He has kindly allowed us to publish his comment as a post in itself.

A woman who missed two appointments because she was in hospital for open heart surgery has been stripped of her benefits.

Lyn Wright, who has a heart condition, says she has been left feeling suicidal as a result of the effect of the decision made by Capita, on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions, to stop her Personal Independence Payments (PIP) which will see her lose almost £140 a week.

After rearranging one appointment because she was due to undergo life-saving surgery in May, she did so again after the surgery was brought forward to earlier that month.

Lyn’s mother Margaret Unsworth informed Capita she was unable to make a third appointment after she collapsed during her recuperation and was rushed to Ysbyty Gwynedd, Bangor in June.

On August 3, the DWP informed Lyn that she had lost her PIP payments due to her “refusal” to make the assessment appointments.

The 48-year-old from Colwyn Bay says she is now on anti-depressants because the affair has affected her so badly and it made her feel suicidal.

A tearful Lyn said: “I never refused the appointments. I was in hospital in May having a mechanical valve put in my main aorta in my heart and I told them about it. I have been suffering for years and I finally found I had two valves missing from my main aorta. I was born with it apparently.

“Then I was rushed back into Ysbyty Gwynedd on June 20 after I collapsed and I got a letter while I was there asking to meet me at home for assessment on June 22.

Is it right that Lyn Wright was stripped of her benefits?

She tried to discharge herself from hospital

“My mother called Capita on June 21 and told them the situation and asked if they could do the interview while I was in hospital but they said they couldn’t and it would be classed as my third ‘refusal’ and passed back to the DWP.”

Lyn, who has also been diagnosed with Lupus, tried to discharge herself from Ysbyty Gwynedd because she was worried about losing the payments but doctors persuaded her to stay and called in a clinical psychologist because she was so upset.

Lyn’s mother called the DWP a week later, offering to send proof of her admissions, operation and discharge dates but she says the DWP said that would not be necessary.

After being discharged from hospital on July 5 she received a letter from the DWP on August 3 saying her PIP payments had been stopped, effective from August 1.

She will now have to wait a further six to eight weeks to see if her payments will be reinstated.

Lyn added: “I’ve lost £139.75 a week and had to stop my carers and my cleaner who helped me while I was recovering. I don’t want to run up bills… because I’ve worked all my life.
‘It’s the injustice of it that eats you up’

“I had a good enough reason. I tried everything to offer to send them the proof I was going in hospital. Then I get the letter saying I didn’t provide a good enough reason and my benefit is stopped.

“It’s the injustice of it that eats you up. If having open heart surgery isn’t a good enough reason for not attending an interview what can you do?

“I asked them to come and see me in hospital and they wouldn’t. I did everything I could.”

A DWP spokesperson said: “Decisions on PIP are made based on the information provided by the claimant and their GP.

“We expect the highest standards from the contractors who carry out assessments on our behalf.”

A Capita spokesperson said: “In line with the agreed operating guidelines, where people are unable to attend two PIP assessments Capita refers their case back to the DWP. We are working with the DWP to investigate this case.”

Readers, if you think this is bad, this seems worse to us. It was left at Fightback’s Facebook page yesterday.

Atos told the DWP that i attended an appointment that i never ever received a letter about, and that i refused to engage before walking out.  Surely falsifying government records is illegal?

Two scarily similar stories in one day. It seems that more and more people are being blamed for not receiving DWP letters. Take note, readers.

This was recently left as a comment on Fightback’s facebook page.

We had a horrible experience with some one from the DWP who came to my home to help fill in PIP form ,,,he was just awful ,,,called me a liar when i told he he was filling the forms in wrong ,,,when i said that you have to be able to do things reliably ,safely and in a timely manor ,,,he said that was not true ,,,he did not have a clue what he was doing ,,,crossed out that my son did not have a support worker ,when his support worker was sitting right next to him ,,,he really was awful ,,,in every section of the form he put a line through as not applicable ,even when my sons support worker said it was ,,,i think he managed to write about 3 line through out the whole PIP form ,and his writing was so bad ,you could not make out what he had put down ,,,i said to him ,you do know that this will fail my son ,,,he said yes ,but when he fails he can write a letter and send evidence ,,,unbelievable ,,,i have kept the form ,,,you really would not believe it if you saw it,,,i phoned to make a complaint ,the lady was very nice and said they need to know if they are having DWP workers going to peoples homes and doing this ,,,these are people that are supposed to help people fill these forms out because they are unable to do them ,themselves ,,i think the man that came here was from connect first ,,,it is terrifying to think that he is still going this job as he did not have a clue how to fill the forms in and treated people like they were fools ,,,he talked over you ,,,and only asked my son part of each question ,and he also decided what questions to ask him ,,,when he was here he had a phone call from a man in tears ,saying he had lost his award after this chap had filled in his form ,,,i said no wonder and asked him to leave ,,,in all my life i have never meet any one so inaproprate for the job that they are doing ,,,it brakes my heart to think that people phone for help and support and believing that is what they will get and they end up with people like him ,,,if they were on their own with him and very unwell like my son with a mental health illness they would not stand a chance.

This comment was left recently at Fightback’s facebook page:

I put in a formal complaint about the way I was spoken to by a dwp worker on the phone. He said if I wanted to waste his time and my time explaining my illness then that was up to me but he wasn’t interested. Spoke over me at every occasion he could. Left me in tears but I was so angry I put in the complaint and he was made to write me a letter of apology and he was put on extra training after a full apology from his manager after her listening to the phone call. And funnily enough my appeal was quashed and was awarded what I was entitled to. Always be polite and they don’t have a leg to stand on when the calls are listened to and always put in a complaint. No one has the right to talk to anyone this way. They are disgusting individuals some of them.

Same Difference would urge anyone who experiences a similar phone call with the DWP to follow the advice given above!

For those who are interested.

“Fit for work” tests are “significantly biased” against claimants in poor areas of the country, new research seen exclusively by the Guardian shows.

Analysis of more than a million incapacity benefit claimants who have been re-assessed for employment and support allowance (ESA), the benefit for people too disabled or ill to work, shows the controversial work capability assessment is disproportionately removing benefits from people in more deprived regions.

At the same time, it found claimants in wealthier areas are more likely not only to retain their sickness benefits – and avoid being declared fit for work – but to be placed in the support group of ESA, in which claimants are not required to undertake any form of work preparation and receive the highest benefit rate.

The study analyses government data from over 300 local authorities between 2007 and 2015 and is published next week in the journal Radical Statistics. It further shows that, counterintuitively, healthier areas found claimants fit for work less often, and placed claimants into the support group more frequently, than areas with higher rates of disability and illness.

“With an accurate test of disability, it would be expected that areas with lower disability and ill health would find more people fit for work,” Jonathan Hume, the author of the research, says. “As it stands, areas where people have the most need for ESA – so higher poverty, higher disability – are the ones removing it at a higher rate.”

Such findings are consistent with the idea that, as part of wider reduction in support for disabled people, the “fit for work” test was designed to cut support rather than better target it to those who “truly need it” as the government has repeatedly claimed, Hume adds.

There have been widespread concerns about the validity of this test in recent years, with critics saying it is inaccurate, discriminates against mentally ill people and those with fluctuating illnesses, and causes widespread stress and even suicidal feelings among claimants.

Ministers pressed ahead with the rapid expansion of the test to reassess 1.5 million existing incapacity benefit claimants in May 2011, despite warnings from their own adviser, Professor Malcolm Harrington, that the rollout should be delayed until the test could be improved.

The fact that this latest research analyses people previously on the benefit is significant because it shows that they were all assessed as meeting a minimum level of disability. As such, anyone subsequently found fit for work by a work capability assessment had been previously identified as having a significant health problem.

In order to determine the causes and extent of any bias in the test, it would be necessary to have access to data about individual claimants – for example, their disability, income and background – which is currently unfeasible due to confidentiality concerns. Still, the research has established a significant relationship between work capability assessment outcomes and local educational attainment. In areas where children finish school with more GCSEs, claimants were placed into the support group more frequently rather than being placed in the work-related activity group – the group in which disabled people must undertake preparation for a return for work or risk having their benefits sanctioned.

Hume says that a possible explanation of this is that people with more qualifications might be more able to complete the significant paperwork required to claim ESA, or are better at seeking appropriate evidence and assistance.

“Ultimately the DWP [Department for Work and Pensions] is making decisions that seem to be influenced by factors other than the health of the claimant,” he adds.

A Department for Work and Pensions spokeswoman criticised the report and said it makes a huge leap in attributing local variation in work capability assessment outcomes to “bias”. She said: “The report is entirely misleading and we don’t recognise the findings. The fact is eligibility for employment and support allowance is not dependent on the area where a claimant lives, but rather on the effect a person’s health condition or disability has on their ability to work.”

The Spartacus Network, a group of disabled campaigners who have previously undertaken influential research into ESA, says the study offers disturbing findings in an area that has so far been seriously overlooked. “The lack of previous analysis in this area is indicative of successive governments’ disregard for the effectiveness of ESA and the work capability assessment, compounded by indifference to the rights and concerns of sick and disabled people,” says the Spartacus researcher Caroline Richardson.

The findings are particularly relevant in light of the government’s impending cut of £30 a week for many new ESA claimants, due to take effect next year.

With the UN investigation into the UK’s alleged violations of disabled people’s rights due to be published in 2017, all eyes are on whether fit for work tests – and the wider disability benefit system – are themselves fit for purpose.

With many thanks to Disability Rights UK.

A significant new legal judgment holds that while someone may ‘push through pain’ in order to continue walking this does not mean that they are walking to an “acceptable standard” for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) purposes.

The new judgment means that consideration should not only be given to whether a disabled claimant can reliably walk up to 20 metres or 50 metres in total.

In addition, consideration should also be given to whether they are walking through pain before reaching 20 metres or 50 metres.

In CPIP/665/2016, Upper Tribunal Judge Markus rejects the Secretary of State’s submission that if pain was not significant enough to prevent someone walking it is only at the stopping point at which the pain meant that walking was to an unacceptable standard.

While Judge Markus finds that while the appellant in this case had not succeeded in showing that he could not walk over 50 metres repeatedly or within a reasonable time period:

“… he said that he did so in considerable pain … and that he would rather push through the pain in order to stay as active and independent as possible.

The tribunal was wrong not to consider what the impact of pain was on the appellant’s ability to mobilise the distance found to an acceptable standard.”

Read fuller summary of CPIP/665/2016

Read full decision

With many thanks to Benefits And Work.

Documents obtained by Benefits and Work suggest that a large number of claimants are wrongly being paid both disability living allowance (DLA) and personal independence payment (PIP) at the same time.

In a document entitled ‘Critical Process Points – PIP Top Must Do Actions’ DWP staff are warned that failure to follow instructions is leading to “high volumes of overpayments of PIP and DLA”.

The document states that:

“When processing all reassessment cases (including SRTI) you must wait for the task generated following receipt of the AP report before recording the decision. This task is purposely delayed by PIPCS whilst it starts a data extract process with DLACS.

“Failure to wait for this task or taking action to record the DLA other benefit information manually, is contributing to high volumes of overpayments of DLA and PIP. This is because the system has not had time to complete the data exchange process and both DLA and PIP can be in payment.”

Claimants who are told they have been overpaid benefits in this way should try to get help from a local advice agency or law centre.

With many thanks to Benefits And Work.

Benefits and Work has obtained a sample copy of the Award Review (AR1) form introduced last month for personal independence payment (PIP) claimants. The form is being issued when a PIP award is due for renewal or where there is a change in a claimant’s condition or circumstances.

The Award Review form is meant to make it easier for claimants to tell the DWP what has changed without having to complete a whole ‘How your disability affects you’ form.

It is intended for use where a time-limited award is due for renewal or where claimants tell the DWP about a change in their circumstances. It may also be used where information provided by someone else suggests there may have been a change in a claimant’s condition.

The form is 12 pages long. It begins by explaining:

We know people’s lives can change making it easier or harder for people with a health condition or disability to do everyday things, so Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is awarded for a set time. This means we need to check to see if anything has changed.

For example, your needs may have changed, you may have had your home adapted, your medication or treatment may have changed or you may have worked out different ways to do things.

We need to ask about any changes in how your health condition or disability affects you since we last looked at your PIP claim.

This form is the easy way to tell us about any changes and help us get your PIP award right.

The form follows a standard format. So, for the ‘Preparing food’ activity, for example, you are asked to say whether doing so is:

• Easier
• Harder
• No change

You are then asked what has happened and when. You are also asked to say how this has made things easier or harder in your life.

There are also questions about treatment and medication.

A decision maker will look at the form and either make a fresh decision based on the information in it, along with your previous assessment report and any new medical evidence, or refer the case to Maximus or Capita if they consider that more information is needed.

We’ll be publishing guidance on completing the AR1 in an updated version of our PIP guide later this summer.

Meanwhile, subscribers can download a sample copy of the PIP Award Review (AR1) form from the DWP Resources section of the PIP member’s area.

With many thanks to Gail Ward.

From Autumn 2016 the benefit cap is going to be reduced and will be set at a different level depending on whether you live inside or outside London:
• £442.31 a week if you are a couple or have children and live in London
• £384.62 a week if you are a couple or have children and live outside London
• £296.35 a week if you are a single person and live in London
• £257.69 a week if you are a single person and live outside London

When the reduced benefit cap is introduced, the benefits included when seeing if your benefit income exceeds the cap will be:
• Child Benefit
• Child Tax Credit
• Housing Benefit
• Incapacity Benefit
• Income Support
• Jobseeker’s Allowance
• Employment and Support Allowance (except when in the support group)
• Maternity Allowance
• Severe Disablement Allowance
• Widowed Parent’s Allowance & Bereavement Allowance
If you are affected by the reduction in the benefit cap your Housing Benefit or Universal Credit will be reduced at some point after Autumn 2016. When this happens will depend on where you live and as yet no schedule has been released.

Same Difference would like to  take this opportunity to say that we fully support Jeremy Corbyn’s second leadership campaign. We wish it every success.