Hi all,
I’m in
talks with my local county council about my care costs. A brief history of my background, so you know
where I’m coming from.
25
years ago I got my own place, received ILF & LA funding (Direct Payments)
for my care costs, employ my own care workers through my dad. I receive 12 hours care per day 7 days a
week. I never had any problems with LA
and they left me alone. ILF went, so the LA picked up the cost with me paying
my contribution. I went through the re-assessment,
but in the end they agreed I still require the same amount of care. Each year my contribution went up inline with
benefit increases and I had no problem with this. This current year the council changed their
rules and charges. Therefore, they
changed the rate of the contribution and gave me 2 weeks notice of this before
they next paid me. They had actually
doubled the contribution rate. As I am
on benefits, I budget my money for everything and have commitments for
different things, so when they informed me I was fuming for various reasons but
I won’t go into detail for now. Anyway, I
got the finance assessor out to re-assess my finances. She deducted things from
the contribution amount, but it was still below their threshold, so I had no
option but to pay the increased contribution amount. However, she enlighten me to the DRE and if I
could come up with a list of things I pay for that are disability related, then
she could take it to her finance manager to decide.
This is
what I did, came up with a list that were disability related and most of them
were rejected. So, I’ve started complaints
proceedings and yesterday had a meeting with the finance manager to find out her
reasonings for rejecting on most things and she said she has went off what my
care manager advised her of what was acceptable. Anyway, my care manager’s team leader was
there and he was not too pleased as I questioned him her actions and he was stumped.
Anyway,
one of the items I put on the DRE form, as suggested/requested by my father
that I want to raise with you guys was a holiday.
I said to
the finance manager, “what’s wrong with a holiday?”, her response to that was
she couldn’t allow it as it’s classed as a luxury and you’re not entitled to a
holiday on that bases as no one else can afford a holiday. So my dad said, “he’s
not asking for a holiday to paid for him, he has saved up for his part of the
holiday and because he can’t go without a care worker, he is using some of the
care component from his PIP to pay for the care worker’s holiday cost part as it is
disability related. This is what he did last year and there were no questions
asked, because he didn’t have the need to ask for anything. Before you increased his contribution, he had
booked his holiday and budgeted for it unaware of what you were going to do”. She still says no, but I’m going to fight
her, as I believe what we are saying is completely fare.
Therefore,
I would like to ask what are your views and if you go on holiday, how do you
manage?
