Disabled people react to benefits payment delay

Cathy Reay

Disabled people left in poverty over the past few months have lashed out against the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for inadequately informing customers of their change in benefit payment scheme.

Several readers contacted Disability Now in reaction to the story Barnsley couple hit by benefit payment delay (July 2010) to say that they also had not been properly notified that the benefits payment scheme would be changing from a weekly payment to fortnightly.

Mr Osmond in Nottinghamshire said that he had only been notified two weeks prior to the change. “Like a lot of other people, I am now scared to death with what this government will do to me. We wait with baited breath to see who may employ a 51 year-old who has a big input into caring for an 87 year-old father. It is all very worrying,” he added.

Disability rights campaigner Michelle Chinnery said: “The same thing has happened to a couple I've been working with but they didn't even get a letter to warn them. They only found out when they went to the bank and their money wasn't there. They were later told that their benefits are being paid fortnightly instead of weekly. This has caused them distress and taken away their independence and control.”

Citizens Advice also reported a number of countrywide complaints from clients. These included a woman from Wales who was concerned that her daughter, who has a learning disability, would not be able to cope with budgeting on a fortnightly basis and be left without money for the second week, and a gentleman who was addicted to gambling and worried that the new system would encourage him to gamble more of his income.

A DWP spokesman said that they notified all benefits recipients of the change, which commenced mid-June, “up to six months in advance”.