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A change in government benefit policy could make it much harder for disabled people to continue to live in the community, disability campaigners have warned, writes Amy Taylor.

The Disability Alliance said it was inflexible and unfair for the government to stop Independent Living Fund payments to people while they appealed against rulings that stopped or reduced their Disability Living Allowance.

Payments from the Independent Living Fund, which is financed by government and aims to support disabled people to live in the community, previously continued until the appeals process had been exhausted.


More than 11,000 people using the fund could potentially be affected, official figures show.

People must be in receipt of the highest rate of Disability Living Allowance to be eligible for fund payments, which are combined with money from local authorities to pay for people's care packages.

A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said that the government would reimburse any care expenses that a person incurred if their appeal was successful.

But a Disability Alliance spokesperson said the new policy could cause claimants to build up debts, lose access to care and stop them from being able to live in the community.


Guy Parckar, parliamentary and campaigns officer at disability charity Leonard Cheshire, said the appeals process typically took four to five months and that nearly half of appeals were successful.

"If ILF payments stop immediately, and are not reinstated until after months of the appeals process, then these wrong decisions on DLA could prove even more damaging and costly to claimants," he added.

The fund changed its policy after it received legal advice that, under its regulations, it was not legally allowed to continue paying awards while an appeal was ongoing.