Carer Passes

Carers Allowance.

The weekly rate is £48.65. This is reduced by the amount of certain other benefits, including State Pension, that you receive. If you receive certain other benefits at £48.65 or more a week, Carer's Allowance cannot be paid to you as well.

Just so you know what a carer gets. This is paid to someone ( A Carer) who looks someone, usually a family member who is disabled to the point of being unable to look after themselves.

From my point of view as a bus driver a carer used to be someone who travelled on a bus with a person who was so disabled as to make it impossible for them to take a bus ride unattended. This disability could be either physical or mental. I say ‘used to be’ because now the Government has decided that carers do not come in the "Core Validity" of Concessionary Bus Passes. The core validity only covers people who are over 60 years of age or are disabled.

Most people who get on a bus and have a pass because they are disabled can do so with little or no problem, indeed many are on their way to or from work. But, and to quote just one example, the young lad who boards the bus in a wheel chair needs a carer with him as he is unable to propel his wheel chair and unable to communicate his needs. He does very much enjoy his trips out on the bus. However the carer who assists him on his trips no longer gets free travel and has to pay the bus fare. Bus fares are not exactly cheap especially if your total income is £48.65. For this carer, a return trip to the town centre is £2.40 which represents 5% of her income. That’s 5% of income spent on one short bus trip, a longer trip say to Brixham and back would be nearly 9%. So while the disabled person can make as many trips as they like for free the carer is severely restricted in the number she/he can. So there is little point in Central Government (the caring government) going to the expense of giving the severely disabled bus passes as they will not be able to use them.

Now as a bus driver I used to see carer passes very rarely, 2 a month would be a lot and I do know that up to February this year Torbay Council had issued less than 200 carer passes. Not because Torbay Council are mean, tight fisted, uncaring sods, it’s just that there are not that many people who need carer passes. Based on the figure of 200 carer passes out of a total of over 30 000 concessionary passes this means 0.7% of passes were carer passes. Out of the total cost for bus passes of one billion pounds carer passes would have cost Central Government an extra £7 million. Now £7 million sounds a lot, give me 7 million quid and this blog would be renamed ‘No longer Busdriving’ about 15 seconds later but to Central Government it is a less than a day in the War in Iran. To disabled people who can not make bus trips on their own it is a life time stuck indoors while life and the buses pass by without an apparent care, or carer, on board.

If you live in the UK please email your MP and ask him to speak to Gordon Brown about extending carer passes into the Core Validity of Concessionary Bus Passes.
Please note; Don't just copy this post and send it to your MP as it will simply get blocked.
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