Is there ever any discussion of introducing a two-tier (multi-tier?) Carers Allowance?
I believe (??) that CA is ‘flat rate’ - ie if you provide more than 15 hours of care a week and earn below the threshold, you get the £62 etc.
So, if, say, you simply do the minimum (eg, you keep your full time job, your home, but spend two or three hours every evening with the caree) you get the same as if you have to live with the caree and provide non-stop, no-break 24x7 care for someone with severe care needs.
Maybe i’m missing something here (or wrong?) but wouldn’t it make sense for the government to introduce a tiered CA system, just like PIP is tiered according to need, but tiered for the suppliers (ie, carers).
CA is not a ‘living wage’ by any stretch of any imagination, so wouldn’t it make sense for it to be a living wage if you are a family full-time carer??
The thing is, though, that the only incentive for the government to do that would be if the ‘higher tier’ (living wage) is LESS than the cost to the nation of taking into residential care all those folk who qualify for ‘free residential care’ (not CHC) because they don’t own any property to sell to pay for it themselves.
I do wonder just how many of that non-self-pay-residential care folk there are in the UK at the moment, as that is the cost that any other scheme needs to be less than for it to be considered by the government.
Yep … one of the many issues discussed within CarerWatch during the led up to the last Carers Strategy back in 2009.
Included within those discussions , the question of means testing CA allied with the more important issue of " Eligibility " … and , needless to add , interlocked with our concept of a new " Social Wage " … now better known as the " Social Whatsit " … as " Wage " caused ancillary discussion as to what to actually call it in relation to our role in the whole scheme of things.
At one stage , actually " Sold " to two prominent Labour mps at that time … as a side issue … my exchange with John McDonnell , then an obscure back bench mp , now prospective Chancellor of the Exchequer , via the infamous John Battle thread on Compass … without question , carers’ finest moment when it came to putting OUR case forward to skeptical audience … THE THREAD … forever prominent in my own carer scrapbook.
I pause for breathe ?
Be interesting to see the reaction of the 2019 class of carers to Jenny’s post … opens up a whole can of worms … for the second time in carer history.
Same conclusions as back in 2008 / 2009 … or a different view mainly reflecting the increasing severity of our Plight now ???
As for me , I always retain some skepticism whenever something crops up that has the potential to divide CarerLand … as in pigeon holing … the old united we stand , divided we fall syndrome ?
Finally , I would add , as I did during CarerWatch days … this is a side issue , part of a much bigger picture !!!
( Tinkering with a mere piece of the whole jigsaw puzzle ? )
At one stage I was supporting FIVE people eligible for Highest DLA, one too stubborn to apply though!
As I didn’t give 35 hours to any one of them, I didn’t qualify for CA!
I was a full time carer for many years, offered a plum job at the local college, but couldn’t do it as there was no school holiday respite available for my son.
It wasn not a choice to stay home and not use my skills, qualifcations and experience.
Surely as to qualify for CA you have to care for 35 hours a week, that IS a full time job. It’s NOT an “income substiture”. It’s even more unfair that if you get a “proper” job for 35 hours, your first “income” is snatched away from you. This doesn’t happen anywhere else when you have two jobs.
If caring for my son is a paid job when anyone else does it, why isn’t it a job when i do it, especially as I do it better than them?!
Yep … clear example of being part of the BIGGER picture.
Two tiered CA / caring as work … plenty more spinning off from the original question to come … no doubt ?
Jenny
It is 35 hours not 15 hours so this makes it very hard- but nor impossible to have a full time job and clock up enough hours of caring around the job to qualify for CA.
The two tier bit is more teh wrong way round- as in a carer who clocks up 25 hours of caring is able to fit in a part time job up tot he earnings limit but when caring gets even tough and becomes a 24/7 job you loose teh earnings but CA remains the same .