Quote:
Originally Posted by nomadking
I was puzzled when the story originally came out as to why large numbers of people didn't complain when their benefits where reduced. The reality was that their benefits weren't reduced, which is why they didn't notice anything amiss. Under the old pre-2011 rules, no extra money.
As I understand it, there had been no automatic transition from contribution based IB to income related IB. You had to put in a specific and separate claim for income related IB. With ESA there was no separate claim required, although I'm not sure what mechanism was there to move from one to the other.
With income-related ESA came other possible additional benefits. The post-2010 change giving a one year limit on contribution based ESA, automatically brought forward the income-related stage. Without that change they wouldn't have been eligible for anything extra.
The assumption was made by DWP staff that if if somebody was already on contribution based IB, then they should automatically be transferred to the contribution based ESA. On the face of it, nothing unreasonable about that. The issue was that if their finances were such that if they had put in a fresh claim for income based ESA, that is what they would have received along with the additional benefits.
The transfers would still have taken place under Labour, and the error still there. It's just so happens the bulk of the transitions were made post Labour, some will have been made under Labour. Labour should have specified that the transition process also evaluated the claimants income-related status, seeing as ESA now covered both types.
Nothing sinister, underhand, or dishonest took place.
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I really don't understand why you seek to politicise matters in your posts at every opportunity.
If something good/bad happens under Labour/Tories it's fair enough to point it out, but you seem to want to defend the Tories at every turn and, if there are any issues that arise, blame it on Labour or say that it would also have happened under Labour (in your opinion).
I don't view this as a political thread, more of a place where people can share experiences, impart information etc.
I don't know about anyone else, but i'm only interested in facts and have no regard for any underlying political agenda.