Channel 4 Dispatches - Britain’s Benefits Scandal 2nd dec (trigger warning topic)
Comments
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I have lots of problems as sick and permanently sick . I gasped when I heard rh numbers mentioned. I live alone and I'm only just in double figures ,never mind what was quoted. But then, media always likes to show and make people who are genuinely ill , it maes them out to be the bad and on brilliant money for no reason. I worked until I had to be kept alive on machines for days on end. Didn't think I'd live,but they don't even want to know about that part of my life .
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REPORT THE PROGRAM TO OFCOM-LINK BELOW
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I too found it surprisingly well balanced. Compared to recent rhetoric coming from the right wing press, it made some relevant points
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Why?
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Malingerers feigning ill health and claiming benefits as a lifestyle choice would be the take away from this programme for a casual viewer not conversant with the welfare system. The word scandal would be ringing in their ears.
The chosen participants all proactively engaged with the presenter - hardly debilitated, on the surface that is, of course.
Our plight deserves much better impartial journalism.
Here's hoping a genuinely compassionate Green Paper with workable solutions comes our way next year.
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I thought the programme was well presented, it didn't on the surface paint everyone with the scrounging brush, instead it highlighted the issues people have trying to get off benefits.
The scandal aspect is the fact it's a broken system and has been for years.
I agreed with the woman who said we have a system that is can't work or can and you are put into one of two places. If you are can't work you are just left alone. There is no support to enable or encourage you to maybe improve your situation, be it therapy or courses.
What stood out were.
- The £1400 a month that was being mentioned. That would have to be UC lcwra with housing with maybe a child element? That could in some cases be accurate but it's misleading. People will think that's cash in people's pocket when in fact a high portion of that is rent. Low income households that are working still get help with the rent. Everyone gets a child allowance.
- The single mum with the child is too worried to try and get employment because now it stops her UC with the housing element. They appeared to get a figure that she would need a 35 thousand a year job as that's her current benefits. That must be including pip, free school meals, medication, transport as I honestly do not think the benefits actually pay anything like this!
- The chap getting help with the forms. He's dependent on alcohol, but it was still filed under mh issues. So the % of people long term sick with mh issues are going to include drug use and alcohol. He wasn't likely to be getting any help for anything mentioned either, that's another broken system
- It sounded as if the person helping him fill in the sickness form was doing a wca form to claim lcwra, it said he was currently getting £100 a week. However he said it's not about your condition but how you are effected. That's how pip looks at it, is the wca lcwra the same now?
- The tiktok was only briefly touched upon. I don't know if that's the reason why we have seen an increase in longterm sickness in the last five years or not. But it seems to have appeared with the introduction of PIP and Covid. The impact of isolating people from friends and family are going to be seen in health terms.
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if you’re in London where rent for a basic studio flat is £1400-£1500 alone , your UC payment ( 35yrs + with LCWRA) could be around the £2000 figure and your right most of this is the housing element.
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This is going to skewer the figures that the government are looking at. The housing element on the UC benefit its going to make it look as if some claimants are claiming thousands a month - when in fact their rent was coming from the council, likely the LHA rate direct to the landlord if they wanted. Now it shows up on the journal that the dwp pay.
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but if the local authorities had done what they were meant to do when they sold off the council houses ie spent the money on building replacement houses there would not be a shortage of houses or the need for all the private rentals instead they lined there own pockets
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I rarely - if ever - agree with the Daily Mail but as I tried to point out above, the casual viewer - without a vested interest in the benefit system - had nothing but disdain for the programme and us as claimants.
We are all tarred with the same brush.
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OK that's good to know I couldn't watch another on on 17th
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I agree I think they should change the part of it has to be 3 months of a condition to a year or longer maybe because saying 3 months and apply for esa is easy for anyone instead of showing you have life long c
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There has always been a shortage of housing that's nothing new.
We've had a lot of new houses being built around me and a fair amount are second homes that get rented out. I know that's not just where I live, but it means they are only short term let. There are not enough affordable places to get onto the ladder. Without the first time buyer, nobody can actually move as you have no chain.
I don't know what the answer is. I am just writing my thinking.
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I think they would be applying for uc with lcwra these days unless they've already paid enough NI to get new style.
What is happening and I didn't realise, if you are in the support group of esa, it's seen as indefinite. You got left alone until reassessed. Things won't really have improved if you've not been given access to medical or mental health services. I can recall waiting six months to see someone. I don't think the waiting lists have improved.
They mentioned about not letting the gp do the fit note. I didn't know patients could ask for one, my gp advised it, I didn't ask.
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Who can give notes then what worries me is it say for severe mental health they will be helping you back to work ?
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I watched the documentary tonight, bearing in mind the articles posted up the thread, I noted that the sickfluencer aspect was about 2 minutes of the show focus and yet it's a major part of the media coverage. Also, that PIP was never named once in the documentary yet was mentioned specifically in some of those articles. These are small details but they show how the media wants to frame the subject and not necessarily how C4 intended it.
The documentary didn't really upset me. I would have liked some discussion on the other side of assessments - how assessors don't always listen or record details correctly, especially as they talked about people using 'correct terminology' - just in the interests of balance. But overall I agree that it didn't scapegoat the claimants so much as condemn the system.
The reason I call out the mention of PIP is that the focus of the documentary was on work and getting back into work and there's still this conflation of PIP and work related benefits which really needs to stop. As a PIP claimant who works, it bothers me that there's still very little narrative about protecting and keeping disabled people in jobs they can do and feel valued, rather than talk about plugging benefit holes and the cost to the economy.
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This wasn't about PIP and disability though, this was looking at the this was looking at long term sick. Esa and LCWRA.
The other interesting thing that was mentioned was where you live. If you live in an area that's low wages, the benefits system pays more. You need more than the wages offer to survive with the cost of living, it wasn't said that it was a lifestyle choice and we were were all lazy.
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Yes, but as I said in my post, the above posted press articles tied it into PIP, whereas that wasn't what C4 intended :)
The local areas thing was also a factor. I couldn't get past the fact that the presenter, and the people he was interviewing in govt and such, were all probably earning very decent salaries doing their jobs, but didn't really consider that not everyone has those opportunities. Especially those who have sickness or disability.
And certain areas of the country do have higher incidences of sickness because of other issues like poverty or industry or whatever.I think what got me the most is that the guy claiming for alcoholism etc is unlikely to ever get support to deal with that. Just money at best. And whether or not he ultimately gets back into work, surely for people like that there needs to be support of a different kind available :/
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Don't have TV licence, so haven't watched TV in maybe 5 years now. Can someone let me know if this is available to watch somewhere else like YouTube please?
I watched the £48 billion benefits one, and I will say please do not watch it or read the comments sections if you think it might upset you, because it definitely will. A load of finger pointing and lies from Channel 4. Shame on them!
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The alcoholic chap and anyone on drugs does need to be offered help. But is it going to come down to that famous lack of funding again, or they are simply not ready to engage?
The figures are wrong saying the increase in longterm sick is mental health if an addiction is also seen under the mh umbrella. We seem to have a black and white, physical or mental list don't we?
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