Ask the experts

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS

Q With this purge going on again over incapacity benefit, am I still exempt from any reviews the government fetches in? When they changed me over from invalidity benefit onto incapacity benefit, there were overriding rules on invalidity benefit claimants.
Mr C H Potkin, Manchester

AB: From October 2008, incapacity benefit (IB) and income support (IS) on grounds of incapacity will be replaced by employment and support allowance (ESA) for new claimants. The government has said it plans to transfer existing recipients of IB and IS for incapacity onto ESA at some point, but there is no date for this. In the recent budget, the government announced that, from April 2010, it will start to assess all existing IB and IS recipients using the new work capability assessment (WCA), which will replace the existing personal capability assessment (PCA). It will take about three years to give everyone a WCA. The WCA is tougher than the PCA, and it is expected that about 10 per cent of people who would pass the PCA and stay on IB will fail the WCA. Those who do fail the WCA will be able to appeal. Otherwise they will have to claim jobseekers allowance and make themselves available for work. But there is no information yet on whether people in Mr Potkin's position will be required to undergo a WCA assessment.

Q I am a disabled person living alone in Haringey. I have no social worker and no living relatives or friends. I am totally isolated and unable to leave my small house. The council has introduced new controlled parking restrictions which end near my house. I am now the first house where people can park outside, free of charge, without a permit. Since this restriction came in, there is never a space free outside my house. But I rely 100 per cent on deliveries for everything I need, such as medicine and food. My chiropodist visits every month and needs to park and so does the transport for my visits to hospital. Although I do not have a car, I have asked the council to provide a parking bay so people making deliveries can park there using my blue badge. First, the council said that anybody with a blue badge would be able to park there. This I entirely accept. Then they said they couldn’t give me one because I do not have a relative who can take me out in a car. It is not my fault that I do not have any living relatives. Is there anything I can do?
Baron Dombovary, Haringey, London

LC: The way that parking bays relate to the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) can cause misconceptions. There is nothing in the DDA that requires local authorities to supply bays for visitors of disabled householders. Furthermore, public authorities are subject to DDA duties but only to the extent that the detriment caused to the disabled resident does not outweigh the benefit that the authority is trying to achieve for the public in general. For example, the location of bays for disabled drivers on highways maintained by the local authority can depend on how such  bays might affect the use of the road by other road-users. On privately-maintained estate roads or parking areas of domestic properties, some disabled householders confuse the DDA provisions relating to service-providers (to make premises accessible to their users) with the perceived duties of landlords to make their homes more accessible by providing designated disabled parking bays. This is seeking preferential treatment for a reason related to their disability and is unlikely to be enforceable under the DDA.

Q We recently organised a trip to Tenerife and booked a Thomson flight from Bournemouth. Among the various charges added to our flight price was £6 per person for sitting together – making an added total of £24 for the return trip. I have complained to the company as my husband is disabled and I am his carer. If I had not paid this additional fee, would we have been seated separately? I have asked Thomson if they were prepared to provide a carer to sit next to my husband and so far they have not replied to my letter.
Marie Crawford, by email

AW: The charge applied by Thomson to both you and your husband for wishing to sit together is, in my opinion, incorrect. Yes, it is Thomson’s policy to apply a charge of £6 per person for those passengers who wish to be guaranteed seats together. However, the agent booking the flight on your behalf should then contact the special needs department within Thomson in order to identify that one of the passengers is disabled, and hence will require help on the aircraft, whereupon Thomson should not apply this charge. I appreciate that, at the time of writing your letter, you had not had a reply from Thomson, but I am hoping that by now, they will have recognized the error and refunded your money.

OUR PANEL

RELATIONSHIPS - SIMON  PARRITT

Simon is a chartered counselling psychologist who has also studied psychosexual therapy. He was the only disabled director of the former Association to Aid the Sexual and Personal Relationships of People with a Disability (SPOD).

FINANCE - DAVID  CLARKE

David has spent 14 years in the banking industry and has worked for three leading financial service providers. He is a senior partner of Clydesdale Bank.

PROPERTY - KATE  SHEEHAN

Kate is a director of Better Living and an occupational therapist with 20 years’ experience and a passionate interest in housing. Better Living works with manufacturers to meet the needs of the ageing population.

LEGAL &  BENEFITS - LINDA  CLARKE

Linda is director of Disability Law Service (DLS). DLS is the only service controlled and managed by disabled people that offers free legal advice to disabled people, families and carers.

EQUIPMENT - JOHN  MANDRAK

John, who is blind, has worked in the disability sector for nearly 25 years, mainly as a disability journalist and consultant. He is an adviser on the Disabled Living Foundation’s helpline.

TRAVEL - ANDY  WRIGHT

Andy is a disabled travel industry professional with over 25 years’ experience and is managing director of Accessible Travel, a specialist tour operator providing holidays for people with mobility impairments.

MOTORING - ED  PASSANT

Ed is chief executive of the Forum of Mobility Centres. The centres provide driver and passenger assessment for disabled people across the UK.

MONEY,  LEGAL  AND  OTHER  PROBLEMS - ALAN  BARTON

Alan is a social policy adviser for Citizens Advice, and an adviser at Rickmansworth Citizens Advice Bureau in Hertfordshire. He has a particular interest in benefits issues.