I want to start off with a post about something that I have mentioned on my other blog, namely two areas that I found absolutely stupid within the Benefits system of the UK.
The first point is about Carers Allowence. This is a strange thing that I really didn't understand and is a loophole that, as far I know, still hasn't been closed but has the potential to save the government some money if they were to close it. If you have a couple who are recieving benefit, normally DLA or AA, to help with care costs because they are not able to look after themselves then each of them would also be able to claim and recieve Carers Allowence for looking after the other one. Basically this means that although someone is not able to look after themselves and gets money to help towards the costs of help, they can also get money for looking after someone else that is also not able to look after themselves. If someone could explain the logic of that to me I'd really like to understand.
The second point is, to me, a bit more important and even more difficult to understand. It involves having to pay for health costs when you are on Benefits, mainly prescription charges and dental charges. If you are in reciept of Income Support you are automatically exempt from paying these costs, weither or not you are sick, but if you are in reciept of Incapacity Benefit (because you are too sick to work) you have to claim seperately for an exemption certificate and because this claim is adjudicated on independently of the original claim you have to wait for it to be processed, which could take longer than the original claim so there will be a certain amount of time when you will have to pay the costs until you get the certificate. Of course you can claim the money back, but you have to put in yet another claim to do this. The other thing is that you are given no guarantee that you will actually be given the certificate in the first place, after all if you were told that you would definately get one why would you need to claim it? Surely it would just be an automatic exemption the same as it is for anyone on Income Support? This situation makes no sense at all to me and if anyone could explain to me why it is done this way I would be eternally grateful.
Well, that's all for this post, see ya soon.
