[News] Eastbourne Horror House - What on earth??!

[Uh_huh_him]

Are any of the kids registered as disabled?

I assume that would probably be the only reason to increase the payments above the norm

 

[bluenitsuj]

Scum. Also, nobody should be getting £7000 a month in benefits. Just shows how failed our system is.

 

[wuntbedruv]

Are any of the kids registered as disabled?

I assume that would probably be the only reason to increase the payments above the norm

Well, the mother had mental health issues preventing her from working apparently.

 

[carlzeiss]

Maybe you get extra money for dogs on benefits ?

 

[FatSuperman]

Yup. One of those exceedingly rare cases that will be treated as if it's the norm to keep the squeeze on benefits claimants. Even though the figures involved for all those cases added together are utterly insignificant in the bigger picture of public spending.

Indeed. The press and Tory-type governments love this sort of story as they can use it as a sound bite. The only sad thing is that they weren't immigrants, because that would have been a double win.

Benefits schemes should be set up like laws are. Some people will not follow the rules, but you don't throw everyone in prison for it. You find and prosecute the people that break the rules and in general, it works. Trying to get a perfect system, in an imperfect process involving humans, is just a huge waste of resources, and usually just stops genuine people accessing the service.

 

[Neil]

Well, the mother had mental health issues preventing her from working apparently.

Well she also ran a Dance School !!!

 

[wuntbedruv]

Well she also ran a Dance School !!!

That was the job she was unable to do due to her health issues. ( the argus tends to put info up across different pages, presumably to profit from extra clickbait)

 

[Weststander]

A combined salary of £84K a year..........for doing absolutely feck all. It's disgusting and shouldn't be allowed to happen....low life scum !

A crazy number, tax free. The equivalent of someone on a salary of £140k.

 

[Weststander]

I had exactly the same thoughts.
I assume Universal credit was paying a private landlord a chunk of that, but even then, I find it hard to understand how you can get to £7k.

They own a property.

Currently £1.6k a month being paid by the state to meet their mortgage repayments.

Leaving £5.4k a month in hand to meet groceries, home fuel, sundry costs in mistreating kids and pets.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

To be fair, their benefits are at an obscenely high level. The system is obviously broken to pay them £7k pm. Or am I missing something?

If benefits in general were at that level, then yes, the system would be broken.
Similarly, the tax system would appear to be broken, when checking the tax paid by Amazon and Google.

The examples above are outliers, which need to be dealt with as exceptions.
However, they are both used instead, to further political opinions rather than be dealt with properly.

The solution to the "broken systems" is to fund the benefits and tax agencies correctly, so the loopholes are closed.

 

[Fignon's Ponytail]

I have found social workers to be generally extremely kind and worthy people, catastrophically overworked and struggling below an enormous weight of human misery with precious little resource to do anything.
Though I'm guessing the questions you refer to do not include "what do you need?"

Both my parents worked in social services for decades - & they were totally exasperated with how things were in the sector towards the end of their working lives - my mum especially as she was out on the front line. They've said it was always the way though, even going back to the '70s, & they were both so glad to get to retirement age & leave.

 

[jackanada]

Both my parents worked in social services for decades - & they were totally exasperated with how things were in the sector towards the end of their working lives - my mum especially as she was out on the front line. They've said it was always the way though, even going back to the '70s, & they were both so glad to get to retirement age & leave.

It's much worse now.
My mum was briefly what is now called an EWO (educational welfare officer) in the 70s. She would visit families whose children weren't attending and while some cases were those of incredibly dysfunctional families others were out of school having caring responsibilities, and some just too poor to afford shoes or uniform after a recent growth spurt. She has direct contacts with other agencies to find additional support and a budget for grants and emergency loans at her discretion.

The same role now mainly consists of sending threatening letters and issuing fines.