Counting the Costs of Caring

With the Welsh Government’s Tackling Poverty Action Plan soon to be announced  there has been a relevant focus on child poverty in Wales this week, including the hard hitting BBC documentary “Playing with Poverty” and the Save the Children report on educational achievement . Families with disabled children in Wales are facing considerable financial challenges and are more likely than other families to be living in poverty. For many going without essentials and getting into debt to pay for food, heating and clothes is the norm.

Contact a Family have been tracking the cost of living for families with disabled children over the past four years and the latest instalment, Counting the Costs 2012, shows that in Wales 82% have gone without something because of a lack of money. Substantially more Welsh families with disabled children are going without necessities and taking out loans for specialist equipment or home adaptations essential to keep children safe compared to the overall UK figure.

Worryingly, 40% of families had fallen behind with payments in the past twelve months; 66% with utility bills, 37% with council tax payments and 32% with the mortgage or rent. This situation is only likely to be compounded in 2012, with Welsh families with disabled children facing new pressures on their incomes due to changes to the benefits system introduced by the UK government’s welfare reforms. Our findings show families with disabled children in Wales are worried and confused about benefit changes, with most believing that that their financial situation will get worse in the next 12 months.

Contact a Family has today launched a campaign to raise awareness of the financial hardship for families with disabled children. The charity is urging affected families to write to their MP with the Counting the Costs 2012 findings as well as details of their own related experiences.

The majority of the families who took part in the research from Wales (79%) were working although only 13% were using paid child care. This has important implications for the expansion of the Flying Start programme across Wales. There is increasing concern over families going into debt with 29% having taken out a loan (27% of those from a pay day, quick cash or loan shark) and 22% having been threatened with court action for failing to keep up with payments in the last 12 months. It will be vital for other Welsh Government initiatives such as Families First and benefit take up and advice schemes to fully acknowledge and address the specific needs of families with disabled children.

Contact a Family is also calling on the Welsh Government to help families with disabled children by ensuring that the poorest families with disabled children are protected from the 10% cut to council tax benefits. This could be achieved by setting uniform council tax benefit schemes rather than devolve it down to Welsh councils. Local councils could also help families with disabled children by disregarding Disability Living Allowance (DLA) payments when calculating entitlement to discretionary housing payment (DHP) and treating families with disabled children as a priority group.

Keith Bowen is the Wales Manager for Contact a Family