New to all this

Hi everybody.

We have just found your site while looking for advice about PIP and we found the advice really useful, we go for my partner, Glynis, medical today and we are not very confident having seen some of the decisions that have been made in the past. I hope that someone will be able to give us an insight into what we do next.

Our situation is that for the last 35 years I have been the official carer for our mentally and physically disabled daughter who because of the need to get her settled before anything happens to us, and the fact that I am needing to take more care of Glynis these days, has just gone into a Mencap residential place. Glynis has a "failing artificial heart valve", severe back pain due to damage over the years and ostio arthritis in both knees. The valve needs replacing but the op is too risky, 45%+ risk of death or stroke, unless it is life or death, and because of the Warfarin she is on there is no viable treatment for the back and knees.

We were advised by DWP to claim ESA so that I could continue to look after her instead of being hounded for work. We have just had the written confirmation of our phone interview. In the meantime we will be getting £114 a month, which is effectively £99 because of the bedroom tax, and even after cutting outgoings to the bone it looks like we will be spending £20? a week more than we will be getting in. We can manage for a short while as we have a small amount of savings but in the long run this is unsustainable.

The ESA form says you are allowed to do "permitted work", I have been volunteering at Mencap and might have the chance of a couple of days work a week, 6 hours a day, £7.50 an hour. Would this be allowed? I assume that we would lose some of the benefit money, if so would anyone have an idea of how much and if it would be worthwhile.

After yesterdays news about DWP just making up information sheets the chance to get honest helpful advice is even more vital. Thanks for running this Site.

Frank

Thanks for the reply Gordon. I was a bit vague.

My partner, Glynis, is disabled and we have put in a claim for PIP (had the first assessment yesterday) for her but when we went to the jobcentre to enquire about what happens next we were advised to apply for ESA rather than me going on jobseekers as that meant I would be available to care for her without getting hassled by the jc. So we applied for her with me as the partner and we now have , I believe, 13 weeks on the assessment phase. We cant manage on the money, essentially £99 after the bedroom tax and I was wondering about trying to get a couple of days a week at least with Mencap as Glynis and I are both volunteers with them so that would be the ideal arrangement as I could get some paid work to top up our benefit and she could come in with me so I could keep an eye on her. That is, if the system would allow it.

We think the assessment went well, by the way, your advice on filling the form in really helped and we think we made a good impression on the lady from Capita. Of course what was said and what will be written can be two very separate things and DWP will almost certainly turn us down at first but we are cautiously optimistic.

Frank S wrote: Thanks for the reply Gordon. I was a bit vague.

My partner, Glynis, is disabled and we have put in a claim for PIP (had the first assessment yesterday) for her but when we went to the jobcentre to enquire about what happens next we were advised to apply for ESA rather than me going on jobseekers as that meant I would be available to care for her without getting hassled by the jc. So we applied for her with me as the partner and we now have , I believe, 13 weeks on the assessment phase. We cant manage on the money, essentially £99 after the bedroom tax and I was wondering about trying to get a couple of days a week at least with Mencap as Glynis and I are both volunteers with them so that would be the ideal arrangement as I could get some paid work to top up our benefit and she could come in with me so I could keep an eye on her. That is, if the system would allow it.

We think the assessment went well, by the way, your advice on filling the form in really helped and we think we made a good impression on the lady from Capita. Of course what was said and what will be written can be two very separate things and DWP will almost certainly turn us down at first but we are cautiously optimistic.

Hi FS,

If I am reading you correctly, you are stating that your partner Glynis is the one with the health issues, and it is she that has made the ESA claim which includes you as her partner.

This being the case, it would still be only her as the claimant that "Permitted Work" was applicable to.

If she was receiving ESA at the couple rate for both of you it would be Income Related (IR) ESA, in which case any monies that you earned from employment would be classed as Household Income and deducted £ for £ from your IR ESA couple rate.

Further, as her partner, if you worked more than 24 Hours/Week this would completely preclude Glynis from receiving any IR ESA payments at all :

24 hour work rule for ESA(IR)

Asset rule for ESA(IR)

More information on Permitted Work with respect to Glynis as the ESA claimant can be found from the links below :

Permitted Work

DR UK Permitted Work.

There is further guidance to Permitted Work 5th link down : This Page

You should be aware that any actions/duties involved with the Permitted Work that Glynis does will be taken into consideration at her ESA WCA, this could obviously be adverse to a positive ESA decision if such actions/duties are contrary to her stated limitations.

With regards to you paying Bedroom Tax, have you applied to your LA/Council for payment of Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP's) ??

You should be able to find further information regarding applying for DHP's on your LA/Council's Website.

Please keep us updated !

bro58

Thanks Bro58.
Yes, that is the situation, and thanks for the links, I will check those out. We have put in a claim for discretionary payments though apparently so have a lot of people so it is uncertain if we will get it.

I will certainly keep you updated as we know things.

Frank

We have just received notification that Glynis has been awarded PIP at the standard rate for care and mobility. . We had not really expected to get both, we knew we qualified but that does not always mean much with the present system so it was a very nice surprise to get the news.

I know we were lucky being in the Capita catchment area as the person we saw was really sympathetic and helpful, not like the horror stories we have been hearing about Atos. It might have helped that we were obviously genuine and the person in front of us was not. We did not see how old she was as she was an asian lady with a full sari on so all we saw was a shape, but she looked really pathetic coming out of the exam room on her stick, a wavery left step and a semi drag to get her right foot level, it took her a couple of minutes to get across a 20` room but a couple of minutes later we saw her through the window walking to her car with just a bit of a limp. We were conscious that we were almost certainly being filmed so were careful, which was not needed as we had misjudged the distance from the car park to the building and Glynis was really suffering by the time we got there.

We have been in the benefits system for 42 years with our disabled daughter and we thought that we knew how to fill forms in but the help and advice we got from this great site was invaluable.

Thank you.

Frank