Disabled left with no cash for weeks in benefits fiasco
DISABLED Scots struggling in the cost of living crisis are being left emptyhanded under the SNP’s bungled benefits system.
Around one in seven claimants has been forced to wait more than ten weeks to receive the new adult disability payment (ADP), figures show.
Nicola Sturgeon claimed further devolution of welfare would lead to claimants being treated with ‘dignity and respect’.
But critics said the SNP had left the most vulnerable facing delays ‘well into the autumn’.
They also claimed the long waiting times were likely to be the ‘tip of the iceberg’, as the new benefit is yet to be rolled out across the country.
ADP is projected to increase from 20,000 claimants in 2022 to 475,000 by 2026-27.
Scottish Tory social security spokesman Jeremy Balfour said: ‘With only a small proportion of Scots eligible for payments already, these delays could be just the tip of the iceberg.
‘The SNP Government must listen to this clear wake-up call. If they don’t, it could mean thousands of people with disabilities are left facing difficult delays into the autumn and beyond.’
ADP replaces the personal independence payment and disability living allowance, and is paid through Social Security Scotland (SSS).
But almost 15 per cent of applicants have had to wait longer than ten weeks for any response. Although the majority of eligible Scots will be transferred onto the new benefit automatically, SSS received 1,216 new applications during the pilot phase where people with mental and physical disabilities in only three council areas were eligible.
Of those, 180 people had to wait more than ten weeks for their claim to be processed – 14.8 per cent of all applications.
The figures only include claimants in Dundee City, Perth and Kinross or the Western Isles.
ADP has since been expanded to ten more council areas. The nationwide rollout is due on August 29.
A SSS spokesman said: ‘Allowing adequate time to consider applications and gathering information on people’s behalf means it may take longer from the time a client submits an application to getting the right decision, but should reduce the need for people to go through a re-determination or appeal.
‘People who are entitled to ADP will see their first payment backdated to the day they applied for assistance.’
nOT only is the SnP’s devolved benefits system expensive, it’s also dysfunctional.
One in seven applicants for the new adult disability payment has had to wait longer than ten weeks for a response.
Opposition MSPs have warned that these lengthy delays may be ‘just the tip of the iceberg’ ahead of the nationwide rollout of the benefit next month.
Alarm bells should be ringing for ministers and civil service chiefs but the Scottish Government merely asserts that waiting times are ‘not necessarily longer than the overall process under the Department for Work and Pensions’.
Was this the summit of the SnP Government’s ambition – to build a new benefits system which, by its own admission, performs no better than the existing one?
If so, it is hard to see the point of these reforms, beyond the nationalists’ desire to do things differently in order to create or contribute to cross-Border divisions for their own cynical ends.
efforts should be redoubled immediately to ensure that the new scheme works properly.
The alternative is that vulnerable Scots languish for months without the help they need – the latest casualties of the SnP’s reverse Midas touch.