Chancellor George Osborne’s third Budget contained little goodnews for people with learning disabilities, and will haveheightened worries over benefits for many. First, the good news:the personal tax allowance limit has been raised to £9,205 fromApril 2013, which in real terms amounts to £170 more a year for abasic rate taxpayer. For some people with learning disabilities inwork, it will mean they have more in their pay packet – althoughmany are only part-time so are already below the tax threshold. Thesame applies to family carers, who are also often on low wages. Butthis will benefit everyone who does not pay 40% tax. Osborne didconfirm that a white paper on social care is forthcoming, which wasalready public knowledge. However, frustratingly, he didn’t confirmwhen it would be published or hint at what the content would be.The white paper has long been slated for ‘spring’, but as we allknow with Government papers, ‘spring’ could be any time between nowand about September. There was also no announcement on thepossibility of extra funding for social care. Earlier this month agroup of charities and service providers wrote an openletter calling for more funding for social care, warning thatwithout it reform will fail. But this call seems to have beenignored. Perhaps that particular rabbit is being kept in the hatuntil the white paper is published, although I doubt that. It lookslike social care will have to carry on trying to do more with lessand deal with reform – and all its attendant costs – as well.Worryingly, Osborne announced that that if reductions indepartmental spending continue as they have further welfare savingsof £10 billion more will need to be made by 2016. I take this tomean that benefits will be squeezed, which could mean eligibilitycriteria for sickness benefits such as disability livingallowance/personal independence payment (PIP) being ramped up. Theeligibility criteria for PIP, which is due to be introduced nextyear, is still to be decided, and this announcement makes me wonderif they may be tougher than originally thought. However, this isjust speculation. The Treasury said to the BBC it is “very earlydays”, and the chancellor’s remarks just “set out the scale of thechallenge”, so they don’t know how the further savings will be madeeither. But whatever happens, it means that worries over benefitsand future reform and provision of social care services willcontinue.
