Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Austerity Budget News
See the BBC's summary here and note the following of particular relevance to people with a serious mental illness...
The Government will reform the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to
ensure support is targeted on those with the highest medical need. The
Government will introduce the use of objective medical assessments
for all DLA claimants from 2013-14 to ensure payments are only made for
as long as a claimant needs them.
The Government will use the CPI for the price indexation of
benefits and tax credits from April 2011. The CPI provides a more
appropriate measure of benefit and pension recipients’ inflation experiences
than RPI, because it excludes the majority of housing costs faced by
homeowners (low income households are subsidised separately through
Housing Benefit, and the majority of pensioners own their home outright),
and differences in calculation mean it may be considered a better
representation of the way consumers change their consumption patterns in
response to price changes. This will also ensure consistency with the measure
of inflation used by the Bank of England.
At any rate I won't have to eat my hat (see this post) as VAT will be rising to 20%.