Every pound cut from disability benefits is a greater cost to councils, according to research by Charlotte Hughes, write of The Poor Side of Life.

By now we should all be familiar with the Labour government’s plan to impoverish disabled people by taking £5 billion out of their benefits.

What we weren’t told is that every pound removed in this way will trigger a cost of £1.50 to local councils.

Charlotte explains:

As Arun Veerappan of the Disability Policy Centre highlights, every pound saved in PIP cuts translates to an additional £1.50 in costs absorbed by local councils.

The often touted claim by proponents of the cuts that savings will be achieved fails to account for the cascading costs that arise when councils must ramp up their services for those stripped of their benefits.

Local councils are likely to face heightened demand for community care services like the Disabled Facilities Grant.

When carers are unable to claim their allowance and are forced to quit providing care, local authorities must fill the void, thereby increasing operational costs.

The strain will not be isolated – it inevitably spills over into the NHS and social care services. According to recent analyses, they could see an added £1.2 billion in costs.

So it seems Rachel Reeves and Liz Kendall are worsening their government’s money problems, rather than making them better.

They might think it’s a jolly wheeze, unloading extra costs onto councils, but when those councils start filing for bankruptcy, it is the national Treasury that will have to bail them out.

It’s just another example of the myopic thinking that has plagued ideologically-rigid governments since at least 2010.

In their zeal for loading all of the UK’s cash onto a very few of its richest citizens, they are pushing the national bank account deeper and deeper into debt.

Source: The Hidden Cost of Cutting Disability Benefits. A Looming Crisis for Local Economies – The poor side of life

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