We have the answer to your benefits problem
Being on benefits these days is no picnic. The politicians have been very effective in persuading even the most liberal of us that everyone can find a job, everyone is capable of doing some sort of work and that benefits are a privilege rather than an entitlement. People who claim benefits are represented as scroungers, lazybones, shirkers and malingerers. No mention is made of the labour markets need for a pool of available workers. Full employment would be disaster for many businesses as it drives up wages and encourages job hopping. Almost all benefits are legal entitlements. There is no discretion. If you fulfil the legal requirements then you are entitled to the money. This is why the government use so called “sanctions” to deny Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) to the unemployed and biased medical assessments to refuse Disability Living Allowance (DLA) or Employment Support Allowance (ESA) to claimants with health problems. It is also why Legal Aid was withdrawn for Welfare Benefits cases. The government have been very effective in reducing the number of people who get legal advice about their benefit problems. Between 2010 and 2013 we did over 600 benefits cases including appeals to the Tribunal and internal reviews. You can see some of these cases here. We were successful in the vast majority of cases. Since 2013 we have been unable to provide a Legal Aid service and instead have had to represent people privately. At first claimants who had been denied their benefit would call and were completely shocked when they were told Legal Aid was not available. They then went on a merry-go-round of the advice agencies only to find in most cases that they could get no help there either. This is because the advice agencies that used to work on a non commercial basis had set themselves up with Legal Aid contracts and when they were withdrawn they also lost the funding the contracts provided. However things are slowly starting to change. We are getting more and more calls from Claimants who have been refused their benefits, especially DLA and ESA. The claimants have begun to realise that even though there is no Legal Aid available advice from well qualified benefits experts is still available at a price that is very much worth paying. ESA and DLA payments are substantial and are not means tested for DLA you could get up to £5623.80 per year and for DLA with both care and mobility components up to £7178.60. Our fees are fixed for most cases and start from as little as £100 plus VAT. You can see full details here.
Keith Hollywood Benefits expert
Laura O’Brien benfits expert