Work and Pensions written question – answered at on 9 November 2010.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of the number of people receiving disability living allowance who will have the amount of benefit they receive reduced in each of the next three years.
The Budget announced that from 2013-14 we would reform disability living allowance by introducing a new, more objective assessment to ensure support is focused on those with greatest need and distributed on a consistent, transparent basis, while continuing to tackle the inequalities that can arise from severe disability. We are developing the new assessment in collaboration with a group of independent health and disability specialists and representatives of disabled people. We intend to run a formal, public consultation exercise on our proposals in the coming months.
The spending review announced that from 2012 we would withdraw payment of, but not entitlement to, the mobility component of disability living allowance to publicly funded residents in care homes once they have been there for 28 days. Local authority contracts with care homes should cover services to meet all a resident's assessed needs, including any assessed mobility needs, so an individual's care support and mobility needs should be met by residential care providers from social care funding. This measure will remove an overlap of public funds while ensuring that resources continue to be targeted at disabled people with the greatest needs.
Disability living allowance mobility component recipients in residential care will continue to retain entitlement and payments will be reinstated should they leave residential care, subject to satisfying the normal conditions of entitlement. We estimate there are currently around 60,000 people in publicly funded care homes who are in receipt of the mobility component of DLA.
Yes0 people think so
No4 people think not
Would you like to ask a question like this yourself? Use our Freedom of Information site.