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As Easter 2023 approaches, there is some welcome relief to help with the cost of living crisis that will shortly appearing in any benefits payments that you get if they haven’t already:

• The new 2023/24 benefit rates apply from Monday 3rd April, closing some of the gap opened up by the time lag in the way benefits uprated. A 10.1% increase (based on the annual CPI inflation rate at September 2022) will bring benefit rates closer to where they need to be after the huge jump in prices triggered in February 2022 It may take tuntil next year to complete the catch up with amounts back in 2020. You can download our chart of the new rates from https://bigbookofbenefits.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/benefit-rates-2023-24-steps.pdf
• You can also dowload Part 2 of the Updater Pack for your copy of the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health 2021-23 . This Part 2 brings your Big Book up to date with all the other benefit changes (apart from the rates right up to the Budget and White Paper announcements in March 2023. It’s available at: https://bigbookofbenefits.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/bbbmh-2021-23-updater-pack-2-march-2023.pdf
• A new Part 3 to follow soon will bring all the pages with rates and sums on them up to the 2023/24 rates.
• Other good news.: extra Cost of living Payments continue for 2023/24: If you get a means tested benefit such as UC, Pension Credit or one of the legacy benefits (such as Income-related ESA) you should get an extra £900 over the year. The first payment coes out as £301 between 25th April and 17th May 2023. Others will follow in Autumn 2023 and Spring 2024. To get the first one you have to have been getting one of the benefits before 25th February 2023 (or with UC have qualified for it between 26th January and 25th February) . If you weren’t at the time but later get a backdated award back to those dates you can still get te payment. Dates for the 2nd and 3rd payments will be announcedd. There are also non means tested payments to add to Winter Fuel Payments for pensioners and to disability benefits such as PIP and ADP. For more details see: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/cost-of-living-payments-2023-to-2024
• BUT other restrictions remain: The Benefits Cap has also gone up by the same 10.1%, but that is the first increase in 5 years and then back into the freezer it goes. The Local Housing Allowance that limits the help you can get with private tenancies is once again frozen, despite rents rocketing in the current housing crisis. The Two Child Limit – that has no evidence behind it – continues to bite harder racking up child poverty rates and blighting the chances of future generations.
• Are the new benefit rates enough to live on? The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Tressell Trust reckon not. They and have launched a campaign for an Essentials Guarantee, calling on the Government to set up an independent commission (as for the National Minimum Wage) to set basic benefit levels that relate to a basic essentials budget. They estimate that even the new basic rate of £84.80 a week for a single person falls well short of the £120 needed. And the £133.50 for a couple falls short of the necessary £200. And forget it if you are on reduced rates for under 25s… Still worse, some 50% of people on UC don’t even get that full rate, because of sanctions, deductions and repaying Advance Payments . For more details go to https://www.trusselltrust.org/get-involved/campaigns/guarantee-our-essentials
• Will there be a new edition of the Big Book of Benefits soon? We are currently working with Child Poverty Action Group and Mind on their new Mental Health and Benefits Handbook. It is a very different publication from the Big Book and doesn’t replace it. You can access the current text for free at: https://askcpag.org.uk/publications/-243337/mental-health-and-benefits-handbook-1st-edition .
• Ongoing work on the CPAG book and what that means for a new Big Book: That work continues to improve and update the text. ahead of a revised online version and printed book. It won’t be an annual thing, just as the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health seems to work best as a new edition every other year (with Update Packs). It makes sense then to alternate new editions of each book.
• In the meantime the free Updater Packs will come close to bringing your current book up to date for the coming year 🙂 . If you haven’t got one you can still buy that last edition ready for some work with scissors and paper paste one wet afternoon 🙂 We will also bring all those packs into the current online version later in the year.
• And just one more thing : In this quieter year for the current Big Book, we will finally get on with a companion Big Book of Benefits and Money for Older People 2023-25. After that the two Big Books can join that alternating years dance 🙂 .

The first of a two-part free April 2022 Updater Pack for the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health 2021-23 is available now on our downloads page here .

This will be quickly followed by Part 2 on the same page, as we join up the work on that (and add some double checking) with our contribution to an updater for the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers. So:

• Part 1 is about the new benefits rates: It brings all the main pages with benefit rates (eg tables, example sums and calculation sheets) up to date with the April 2022 rates. We are very much hoping that if the suggestion of a further emergency uprating is taken up, that we will be forced to redo this in a couple of months.

• Part 2 will focus on other changes : Not many that aren’t already covered in the last Big Book, but still important as DWP returns to “business as usual” (how you deal with them, re-assessments etc) and restarts switch-overs to newer benefits e.g. the switch from Adult DLA to PIP (or now ADP in Scotland) and the slow start of “managed migration” to Universal Credit. And the latest on extra help with the “cost of living crisis” and growing fuel poverty.

You can download these two Update Packs for FREE!! and print them off. You may want to just keep them to refer to alongside your copy of the last edition of the Big Book, write changes into your copy or paste replacement pages over the top of the old pages.

The last edition of the Big Book was late 😦 , but as a silver lining, captured some important changes after April 2021 :-). So all the tips, practical tools and information about both the current system and changes ahead largely hold good. If you don’t yet have a copy, you can still buy one and use with these free Update Packs. If you already had a copy, these packs give you another year’s shelf life. Every little helps:-)

If you prefer to have all the text up to date on the page of your book, you can find out more and subscribe to the online edition here

(This post was updated on 29th March 2022)

The current edition of the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health is being extended from its original 2021-22 date to become the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health 2021-23

A free Update Pack will enable you to extend your current copy beyond April 2022. If you haven’t got a copy of the current edition you still can at one of the links below.

Back in Summer 2021 we wrote: There has been a lot of beavering away and a few hiccups along the way, so we just missed our Midsummer’s day publication date. The delay does mean we have incorporated a number of changes made in the early Summer of 2021, making this edition even more cutting edge than it would have been.

You can order your copy:

• By clicking on the link at: CPAG

• Or by ordering at your favourite local bookshop.
• Or by clicking on the link at: Amazon

The mock-up to the left gives an impression of how it looks but it will actually come with a black spiral binding.

And with new stiffer laminated covers to help keep the pages in order and giver a nicer harder wearing finish. New copies will soon start to ship with an amended cover saying 2021/23 and with the link to our downloads page where you will find the free April 2022 Updater Pack

Alternatively, you can take out an annual subscription to the Online Edition for £24.00 from the Ask CPAG website. This offers the same content and layout as the printed version, except that the text will amended to include all the changes in the April 2022 Updater Pack

You can read more about the current edition and the April 2022 Update Pack – on the Big Book’s own page on this website, which you can get to direct by clicking here

You can also get what lies between its covers by clicking here.

It has put on lockdown weight at a time of high paper prices for printing. So, after holding the price for 5 years, there is a regrettable need for a small price increase to £28.00 for the printed version , but £24.00 for the Online Edition.

The ISBN number that can help your local book shop track it down is: 978-0-9954595-4-0.

Please let us know what you think – both about the book itself and the way we are extending it to April 2023- by using the feedback page near the back of the book or leaving a comment.

The upside of this extension is that the book can be useful right through until April 2023, so it could end up lasting you nearly two years. The downside is some extra faff in needing to refer to the Updater Pack .

We hope you – and the people you support – feel the benefit. Good luck 🙂

Hi all, I hope you had good sunny Bank Holidays .

By the skin of May’s teeth, the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health 2021/22 is finished and about to embark on its journeys to printers and posting as an e-book

I will confirm arrangements and final launch dates over the coming week and will post shortly about how you can get your copy

MENTAL HEALTH AWAREMESS WEEK

You may have seen a lot of activity across all kind of mental health organisations, media, tv programmes and awareness raising activity for https://www.facebook.com/mentalhealthfoundation.

If you are going to be far later than intended with a Big Book, then it’s as good week as any to get the last bits done, while planning ways to get both online and printed versions out there.

BIG BOOK IS NEARLY THERE – ONLINE & PRINT 🙂

We had genuinely thought April would be doable, with both authors planning chunks of time to get this done. Apologies to all for not quite making it , but unavoidable stuff has got in the way for us both. and we have slipped into May. The final uploadable and print copy should be ready for setting up in new online homes and printing to start early next week. I will post again to confirm the how?, where? and when? , to get your copy , some pre-ordering possibilities pre- ordering and then to announce when the books are for download or available from all good bookshops. Thank you hugely for your kind patience

Please take a look :

• on our Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health page for more details of what you may find in this new edition of the bumper book of benefits joy 🙂

• and on our Downloads page where we will be posting some useful updated sample pages from the new edition to give both a preview of what’s inside and some free practical tools that may be helpful

Spring is in the air and Happy St. David’s Day / Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus

A quick update on “What’s occurring?” for Big Books generally and to help with the hunt for a new edition of the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health

Changes at Big Books

Over recent years, I have welcomed the opportunity to keep the Big Books light burning, while keeping my feet grounded and a bit of financial security in working part time as an adviser. But that has also constrained how much time I could put into the Big Book of benefits Project.

Last Autumn was a big and difficult choice time. My part time post was going, but an awesome, full time vacancy was offered instead. A big move to the big city would be involved and with it being strictly full time only, it would have involved putting Big Books on a bit of a backburner 😦

After much pondering, exploring and agonising , heart has ruled head, Big Book of benefits it is, and you are stuck with me and wild plans to post more of news, happenings and content on this site and on our facebook page. And one of those is our involvement in a project to offer some free training across Wales…

Dangos: Showing People Ways to help others

We are now heavily involved in delivering a big project offering free online awareness training sessions funded by the Welsh Government . The idea is very “Big Books” in nature to train up frontline staff and volunteers across Wales to raise awareness of benefits, barriers andother help available to the people they come across in their working and volunteering roles.

The idea is to help people be more confident and better informed and more aware listeners, better able to hold conversations with people and encourage them to get to advice and support to access the help they need. To encourage people that it is worth talking to an adviser and to support them in linking up with one. You can find out more at: https://www.dangos.wales

The Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health – April 2021-22

When I last posted, on our Facebook page, we had worked out the eccentric notion of making it a 2021 Annual, running from January 2021 to January 2022, as this seemed the earliest practical way to release a new edition of the Big Book.

So what happened to ? Well, it’s back to a conventional April 2021/22 edition now, for a couple of reasons:

• While the new rates were mostly out, some dragged their heels into February , others have been put off to this month’s Budget. That includes big decisions affecting many of our readers, such as whether or not to continue the vital extra £20 on UC and what next for the other Covid special schemes?

• the rapid pace of kickstarting the Dangos project mentioned above. This diverts a little, but is doing good Big Books type work and gives Big Book of Benefits a bit of a financial base to make things happen

So, your Big Book authors, have now exchanged hard stares over Zoom – scary I can tell you – and committed in blood – or vegetarian equivalent – to very firm plans for getting the new edition out.

• The next step will be a bit of a pre-launch at the next gathering of the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers – www.nawra.org.uk – alongside a Big Books presentation of recent benefit changes to advisers from across the UK.

• The new and upcoming edition of the Big Book will then incorporate all of those latest changes and sharing of information and ideas into a final updated copy with all the final fiddly stuff of page numbering, proofing and all else that goes into the birthing of a new edition, over the course of March.

• The new edition will then emerge all shiny, sheeny new and so on trend and on time, as the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health – April 2021/22 .

The new edition will be available as an e-publication from the start. Printing is a bit trickier in these lockdown times, but we hope to offer that printed book option, as soon as we can.

Updating the website

Meantime, here at our website, it’s high time for a much needed spring clean, to brush off the cobwebs (after carefully re-homing all spiders ) . In recent months it has looked as though nothing much has been happening although in practise little feet have been paddling furiously 🙂 . So in coming weeks the plan is to update all of our pages to make this site a little bit more hip, happening and useful .

Stand by for news of cunning plans ahead, our renewed training offers adding online training options to when we hope to renew “in house” training courses . There will be lots of updated and new free resources and information on our downloads page.

Enough already…

Have a happy Spring day and I hope to be posting more news, more regularly on this site and announcements about the patter of not too tiny print soon

Tom

The Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health 2018-20  was published in early November 2018 .

How much is it ?

Where can I get a copy?

Why isn’t in the usual annual edition this time?

Where can I find out more?

For more information about the new Big Book Of Benefits and Mental Health 2018- 20 – plans, what’s inside, excepts etc – please see the book’s very own page on this site  – here 

After a big year for changes last time, we were looking forward to gentle updating and our earliest ever availability for the new 17th edition . But late changes to PIP points, a new PIP2 form and more evidence emerging for re-opened enquiries into the coaolition of chaos and confusion in UC Full Service areas – strong and stable it ain’t 🙂 – all meant we were writing and checking into the wee small hours again.

Publication will now be in May and we will post again to confirm copies are on the shelves. Next year, we will sharpen our quills earlier :-).

So welcome to our new baby as presses roll. 405 pages of fully updated friendly information, practical tools and resources, example forms and supporting letters right through to appeal submissions and usedul case law. The Price is held at last years £25 +p&p

You can find out more about this year’s edition by:

• clicking on the back cover below
• having a look at the cotents and excerpts here
• or by going to our Big Book of Mental Health page here

You can order a copy from our main distributors – Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) -either by:

• ordering online: pop a copy into your online shopping basket, at the CPAG webshop, here
• by telephone: 020 7812 5227
• by post: download and print off the order form here
• by e-mail: bookorders@cpag.org.uk

Thanks again everyone for your kind feedback, patience and support 🙂 The book may not make a lot of money for the work that goes in, but we hope that it helps tells it how it is and offers practical tools to help you make a real difference. May you and others feel the benefit 🙂

Read the book? Now, see it Live 🙂 : If you like the book – or are thinking of ordering several copies – why not check out our linked linked Big Book training. See our Training page – here – for more details.

Despite promises not to announce any new cuts during this Parliament , following a big PIP points row in March 2016, the Government are at it  again. They have  adjusted – or clarified – depending on your point of view,  the points system used in assessing Personal Independence Payment (PIP) .

Learning from last time, the change has been sneaked through in a rush and without the usual statutory consultation procedure . The aim was to over rule recent Court judgements , presumably because just appealing against them was judged unlikely to succeed based on any test of reasonableness. The changes make it crystal clear that they want to really limit difficulties around medication and to directly discriminate against those whose PIP Mobility difficulties are caused by mental distress.

PIP is a vital benefit for so many , as was Disability Living Allowance (DLA) before. For so many it makes the difference between “living and merely existing” . PIP is always paid on top of any other income, is not affected by any other income, savings or National Insurance contributions, is ignored in the sums for means tested benefits and can also trigger increases in those and other  benefits.

When the PIP points system saw the light of day we were told not to worry that several of the common difficulties we were used to describing on DLA forms did not make it on to the PIP points grid – which you can download – see below.

The grid was carefully worked out – with the involvement of disability charities – with two key principles in mind:

• to offer a more level playing field for all health conditions and disability to enable those having sufficient places where they can score PIP points in a fairer way.
• And as with DLA before , the issue  is the extent of the day to day  difficulties you face and not the underlying cause or diagnosis .

1. So Whats’ occurring?

The amended point system applies to all new PIP claims made on or after the 17th March 2017. Existing awards or claims made before the change are not affected. Nor are those made before 17th March but still being assessed or under appeal. However come renewal time, or if you apply to have your PIP claim looked at afresh before it is due to end – then the amended system applies. You can see the BBC News story around this here

You may remember, that  there was quite a kerfuffle the last time this was tried, back in March 2016. The row then was a change aimed at those with physical difficulties and was about changing the way aids and adaptions was scored.  announced within the more open Parliamentary process of the Budget. It resulted in:  the resignation of the long serving Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith and a “U-turn” on the policy. Another BBC News piece at the time is available here

This was followed by a clear commitment that there would be no new disability cuts to be announced this Parliament, reinforced and extended to all benefits by the new Theresa May Government.

But less than a year on, the urge to scratch at PIP has returned.   This time the focus is on just two of the 12 PIP Activities and the target is very people living with mental health difficulties as the target. However, the Government says this is not a new change but a clarification of what was always intended, in the wake of two binding legal judgements.

But they said very much the same last time too …  Is it a change or not? Is it a cut? All depends on your point of view 🙂  But the DWP estimate that if the old system – with the legal rulings in place – were not changed there would be additional spending of £3,700 million by 2020. New cut or not, the upshot is less money for those claiming PIP.

2. Which parts of the PIP assessment are affected?

The changes are focused on just two of the twelve PIP activities, both of which could be very relevant to people affected by mental distress.

A handy PIP Descriptors and Definitions Chart

You can download a chart of the PIP points system that works both for claims started before  and – with the changes highlighted – those started after the 17th March 2017 . The previous single-sided points table now also has a chart of the DWP Definitions – that were also amended – on the back , together with a reminder about Reliability and Variability.

The idea is to offer a useful easy reference tool to have by your side when filling in a PIP2 How Your Difficulty Affects You? form or when working out how to challenge a PIP decision. And it is one that will be good whatever your health conditions or disabilities.

You can download a copy from our Downloads page – by clicking  here  –  There you will also find other useful free  bedtime reading 🙂 .  Or you can go direct to the PIP chart here.

Activity 3:  Monitoring a health condition and managing therapy

Here,  the Government is clarifying / changing the test to say that help with medication is totally separate from help to manage therapy.

This will mean that no matter how critical or complicated your medication regime happens to be, any help will be confined to scoring an almost useless 1 point under descriptor 3b.

It’s almost useless,  because scoring a single grudging point for what might be a considerable part of day to day difficulties – usually can’t affect your overall PIP score. And that’s whether its because of issues around medication or all that is left of  DLA’s recognition of needs for  general  supervison against the risk of harm to self or others.  If it was 2 points – not alot for what could be major difficulty in someone’s daily life – then at least it might help. As just 1 point it only really helps in combination with Descriptor  4 e on the chart   .

The Court ruling has accepted – and this still applies if the unchanged points descriptor applies to your PIP claim – that  help with medication could combine with any other therapies and depending on the total weekly time needed, could score  you anything between 2 to 8 points within Activity 3.

Activity 11: Planning and following a journey

This is one of the just two activities for PIP Mobility, the other being physically walking at Activity 12. Often issues of concentration, anxiety , low mood, appropriate behaviour, fight or flight responses or confidence can get in the way of managing to get from A to B,  especially in unfamiliar or busy places or sorting out times, fares and enclosed spaces on public transport.

You may physically walk OK, but really need help to plan and follow a journey which is where Activity 11 comes in,  looking not unlike the criteria for the old DLA Lower Mobility

The change here is to make what was previously a slightly hidden, nudge, nudge , wink wink discrimination against people with mental health issues to now be an absolutely crystal clear one.

Right from the start of PIP, there were two seemingly unnecessary separate scores for those facing “psychological distress” :

•  if you  need prompting to undertake any journey because of “overwhelming psychological distress” you get 4 points at Descriptor 11b – which on its own own gets you no PIP Mobility.

• If it’s so bad that you just can’t go out at all, then you get 10 points at Descriptor 11e and the standard rate of PIP Mobility (equivalent to the old DLA Lower Mobility).

On the face of it, there was no clear reason why the other more general descriptors within Activity 11 couldn’t also be used to more sensibly explore your limitations caused mental distress, just as  as much as difficulties from any other cause, such as learning difficulty, sensory impairment. Under these quite suitable for all comers descriptors:

• if you find it difficult to plan the route of a journey -see Descriptor 11c – or to get out in unfamiliar places without company – see Descriptor  11d – you could get enough points for PIP Mobility at the standard rate ( in the same way as DLA Lower Care)

•  and if you needed company to go out in even familiar places you would get 12 points at Descriptor 11f for the enhanced rate.

There was nothing to forbid these criteria being applied when eg the difficulties in an unfamiliar place were caused by mental health issues, just some strong guidance and hints not to.

” Those 4 points from 11b are all very interesting but what about the difficulties generally planning and following a journey” said Advisers .

” Hmm…well we shouldn’t and perhaps only some of them…but fair point. Lets be reasonable”, said the Courts .

“No way we know not of these strange words that you speak !” said the DWP…

The amendment makes it very clear that PIP Mobility does discriminate people with mental health issues, even if the difficulties they face in planning and following a journey are directly comparable with anyone else. From 17th March you simply are not allowed to have those difficulties counted and Descriptors  11c, 11d and 11f  are closed off to you. You are just left with the much more extreme sounding – yet lower scoring Descriptors 11b and 11e on the chart.

The challenge to getting or keeping Mobility will be to link up to any physical walking difficulties under Activity 12. Or if you can point to any other causes than mental distress to get you back into the mainstream under Activity 11.

The Government are hoping you can’t as they have  relying on – now much more blatant – discrimination to get some 700,000 people off DLA Lower Mobility in the switch-over from DLA to PIP.

For more details  – and arguments you can use –  about these PIP Activities under both the  old and amended systems, please see the forthcoming Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health 2017 / 18

Candles have been burned at several ends smile emoticon in readying the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health 2016/17 for the printers.

Presses are rolling and we hope that the first copies will be available within a week. You can pre-order at our main distributors CPAG .

Big changes this year – so  if you only update now and then, this is certainly one you need:

• the first wave from the extra £12 billion cuts are hitting people from this April, with most of the rest next April. Full details in the relevant chapters and in the welfare reform chapter

•  the switchover from DLA to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) started last October and runs until March 2018, so we are upping the help in our PIP chapter to help people through the switchover and to make an appeal if needs be, with new PIP caselaw sections.

• Universal Credit is now beginning to reach out beyond jobseekers. Area by area – from May 2016 to June 2018 – all new claims for means tested benefits and tax credits will start to be for UC instead. For those already on what the DWP now call “legacy benefits”, it will become much easier to switch over to UC early and without protection. A once ambitious welfare reform – “to make work pay and protect the vulnerable” – has now degenerated more into a cuts led exercise that “balances the budget on the backs of the working poor and the disabled” . It seems UC’s founding father has had enough. Fully updated for this April’s “in work” cuts, the yawning disability gaps and next April’s “two child policy” and surplus earnings changes

• ESA carries on as new kids on the block – US based health multinational Maximus – rescue the crashed assessment process. But the issues with the tests – when you get one – remain and advisers are seeing demand for help with ESA decisions pick up too. Your practical toolkit is fully updated with resources to help now and when Work Related Activity Component is dropped for new claims next April. .

But every chapter has been revised and updated – changes to Housing Benefit, Pension Credit, and tax credits are important as well and no chapter has been left untouched 🙂

But as well as all that big picture cuts gloom, we hope this year’s Book will help its readers shine a little light too. You can still make a very real difference to how the changes will affect you or the people you support and work with – whether to protect from the cuts or still claim those missing millions. You can make that real difference to gain or protect the benefits that make the difference between “living and merely existing”

The Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health 2016/17 is available from Child Poverty Action Group  bookshop and through all good bookshops.

You can pre-order from CPAG either:

• by telephone, please ring: 020 7837 7979
• by e-mail to: bookorders@cpag.org.uk
• by post :  download and complete the order form available here

Once it is available on their shelves – in the next week or so you can order online:

•  by popping it into your basket at the CPAG webshop here

You can find out more about Big Books and linked training – including back by popular demand the very course that led to the book – on this website .

Readers of Your Big Book of Benefits 2014/15 – which was a joint project with Your Benefits are Changing – will find this years book is the nearest thing to an update. The two books share many aspects and the same familiar, practical, friendly approach . We hope though, to explore with Community Housing Cymru the potential for a future update of that particular variation. .

As ever we dedicate this 16th edition to the still much missed and loved author of the first 12, Judy Stenger. Her warmth, wit and wisdom still permeate the book through all its changes. And also to all those going through these changes with anxiety, despair , hope, humour and enduring courage. We hope in our own small way, that we too can make a difference.

 To find out more please see under the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health page on this website – click here.