rottweilsteve
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 80
- Location
- Cymru
- Dislikes
- incorrect punctuation (see above), Otherwise dishonesty, discrimination, prejudicial behaviour. and general nastiness.
I had a very nasty experience recently. I'm on incapacity and DLA because of aids - diabetes is a side issue here. Because my health is so variable, even on a day to day basis, I'm pretty much unemployable. While this isn't an ideal situation by any means, I found a way to give back to the local community by volunteering to work the odd hour or two in our village shop (it's the only shop for ten miles on the main road, five miles if you're prepared to drive single track roads).
Anyway, one day last month, the owners of the shop got a letter out of the blue from the DWP asking about my employment at the shop. It started with a simple yes/no question as to whether I was employed there. If no, just sign on the dotted line three or four pages later, if yes, answer all the questions in between. I sought advice. Since I was working as a volunteer, I am not employed there so the owners could tick the no box and send the form back...
Meanwhile I got the Clinical Nurse Specialist to write me a letter urging me to consider some form of voluntary work to get me out of the house. Paid work was out of the question because of the instability of my health, but I needed to do more than stare at the living room walls... I spoke to the DWP and read them the letter (and then forwarded a copy of it with a covering letter) and their reaction was fine: my mistake had been in not informing them in the first place that I was doing voluntary work. They prefer to know in order to prevent malicious reports of benefit fraud. Apparently my letter would go to an assessor who would in all likelihood okay it as a matter of course.
While on Incapacity and DLA you can work a certain number of hours and earn up to a certain amount of money (I don't know the figures), but until this incident I didn't know that they also wanted to know about voluntary work. So if anyone here is in a similar position to me, claiming some benefit and doing some voluntary work, I'd suggest that they bear in mind my experience. Talk to the CAB or a social worker first, but make sure the DWP know what's going on.
This all blew up a month ago and this is the first time I've felt calm enough to talk about it. The population of the village is less than 100 and I guess the shop pulls in perhaps another fifty people from outside the village. One of those people is "civic-minded" enough to phone the benefits fraud line. Leaves a nasty taste in the mouth given that I was doing nothing wrong (the DWP "prefer" to know...)
And if that wasn't enough, the letter arrived on the day I had to have Zeus, the older of my two dogs, put to sleep because of osteosarcoma. He was thirteen years old (very old for a rottweiler) and had been with me nearly ten years...
Steve
Anyway, one day last month, the owners of the shop got a letter out of the blue from the DWP asking about my employment at the shop. It started with a simple yes/no question as to whether I was employed there. If no, just sign on the dotted line three or four pages later, if yes, answer all the questions in between. I sought advice. Since I was working as a volunteer, I am not employed there so the owners could tick the no box and send the form back...
Meanwhile I got the Clinical Nurse Specialist to write me a letter urging me to consider some form of voluntary work to get me out of the house. Paid work was out of the question because of the instability of my health, but I needed to do more than stare at the living room walls... I spoke to the DWP and read them the letter (and then forwarded a copy of it with a covering letter) and their reaction was fine: my mistake had been in not informing them in the first place that I was doing voluntary work. They prefer to know in order to prevent malicious reports of benefit fraud. Apparently my letter would go to an assessor who would in all likelihood okay it as a matter of course.
While on Incapacity and DLA you can work a certain number of hours and earn up to a certain amount of money (I don't know the figures), but until this incident I didn't know that they also wanted to know about voluntary work. So if anyone here is in a similar position to me, claiming some benefit and doing some voluntary work, I'd suggest that they bear in mind my experience. Talk to the CAB or a social worker first, but make sure the DWP know what's going on.
This all blew up a month ago and this is the first time I've felt calm enough to talk about it. The population of the village is less than 100 and I guess the shop pulls in perhaps another fifty people from outside the village. One of those people is "civic-minded" enough to phone the benefits fraud line. Leaves a nasty taste in the mouth given that I was doing nothing wrong (the DWP "prefer" to know...)
And if that wasn't enough, the letter arrived on the day I had to have Zeus, the older of my two dogs, put to sleep because of osteosarcoma. He was thirteen years old (very old for a rottweiler) and had been with me nearly ten years...
Steve
