One of our Special Needs Adult sons goes to places that require extra fuel which until now was acceptable as I received a certain amount each month to cover the extra cost of fuel, last year we were told the allowance would reduced to below half , now it has been stopped altogether , as carers we try to give our Special needs sons a good quality of life , which means allowing them to spend part of the day at care and activity establishments .this is getting harder ,and harder to accomplish when the powers that be continue to inform us the favourite sentence " your not allowed to do that" but we are still expected to find the cash to continue so that the day to day routine is not changed because as all Carers are aware Special Needs people most of the time do not like changes to their daily routine . we will now have to decide however as to whether we can afford to continue to run both our sons here and there to activities since the assistance we once had for about 10 years has now been decided namely HCC [Serco] DECIDED Your not allowed to do that.
Hi Ian,
do your son’s claim PIP? The mobility part is exactly for this sort of thing - to cover the cost of travel.
In some LAs I believe if the activity is part of a Needs Assessment, then the cost of travel is covered by social care.
Melly1
Have a look at the 2014 Care Act. This sort of expenditure is part of the Disability Related Expenditure, which you should be able to claim back from the council, or get the weekly Client Contribution reduced because of it.
When my son had his first financial assessment I asked what sort of things were covered, only had a vague reply, not details of how to claim. I now know that I’ve been subsidising the county for years, paying for things they should have done!
BB
I’ve just looked up Disability related expenditure from the care act I did not know about all of this.
It does mention transport costs.
We also do a lot of transporting for our sons. And now I have to go to a meeting and I have to pay for a taxi to get there. The meeting wasn’t called by me.
Going to send them the bill I think!
BB have you managed to get your LA to stump up any of these costs now you know about it?
I got them to reduce his Client Contribution last year by £30 because I had to take him to and from his flat, 15 miles away. Now I know more they can expect me to ask for more!