Couple on £7000 a month benefits……….

Social services seem to have failed in this case. I do wonder whether Social Services were adequately funded and with enough trained staff to cope.

Yes, I agree with you*Iam64*. Too often ''poor' is used as a synonym for 'inadequate, when the truth is most poor people manage exceptionally well, given their circumstances, and equally poverty is used as an excuse for people who would probably, made poor choices and decisions, rich or poor.

This family were clearly not poor, money was being showered on them. Their family income, whatever its source, probably puts them in the 10% of household incomes.

I think it was MissA who commented on the poor coordination between agencies. This has been the case for so many years, even when I worked in Social Care twenty years ago. It means that so often people fall through the net and nothing is followed up. The Government did say they were going to address this quite recently but I'm not holding my breath.

Most people who are disadvantaged manage to live decent lives. Some people make poor, often selfish choices.

nanna8, but they wren't feeding the dogs, or not muc. All the dogs were emaciated, ill and neglected, ditto the children, even clothes seemed to have been in short supply.

Looking at how expensively dressed and immaculately groomed the man in this family was, compared with the rest of his family, I would suggest, he is the secret of how so much money was coming in and so little was spent caring, feding and clothing children and dogs.

I wonder how much it would have cost to feed all those dogs and why they didn’t sell some of them . Perhaps they were running a kennel or something. I actually felt a bit sorry for them because they obviously couldn’t cope and why on earth weren’t social services involved ? They obviously must be intellectually disabled.

Can’t believe this. Especially as I used to write articles for Euroweekly.

Some wonder how the parents got away with this.
Have a look at MN. The thread is Social services have taken my nephew
It’s a personal story of sisters who did everything they could for years. Their sister is the mother of the nephew.

VenusDeVillendorf

Is 7K a lot or a little? For 7 kids and 35 dogs it seems very little.

To earn a net amount of 7k a month you would need a gross income of over £100,000 a year.
7k a month is £230 a day.

I think it is a lot of money.

But the money was clearly not spent on the children or dogs.

Is 7K a lot or a little? For 7 kids and 35 dogs it seems very little.

And yes, believe it or not, want to see it, or not- it is partially a political issue and 'choice'.

MOnica - your valid question needs lengthy answers but -care proceedings have continued to increase. By 2021 the number of care proceedings involving 10-17 year olds had doubled in the previous 10 years. Proceedings rose steeply during lockdown.

Put simply pressure was put on local authorities to reduce the number of care proceedings and number if looked after children. This, alongside the austerity approach that saw family aides, family centres, substance/mental health, parenting skills courses etc cut to the bone.
Experienced managers were made redundant in the first wave of Cameron’s austerity programme. The emphasis on avoiding proceedings and working with families created a culture where the threshold for intervention got higher.
I could rant on but what’s the point

It all seems rsther wishy washy to me.
We hear of social workers not getting an answer at someones door, so they go away and then nothing is followed up.

If the systems are in place to make sure that if parents do not co-operate, they can be made to, why do we hear of so many cases where this clearly did not happen?

Thanks urmstongran, yes it’s dispiriting and raises feelings of sadness and anger.
Many experienced managers were made redundant in the first wave of austerity, I think in 2010. The short sighted, let’s get rid of a lot and save some money approach was destined to failure.

It certainly sounds as though your knowledge, experience and expertise are just what this country is crying out for Iam64. You must find news of such cases so dispiriting.

MOnica, there is no need for a system for people who won’t do-operate with Social Services. We have a legal framework, the Children Act that works effectively if the lead agency, that Is the local authority’s Children’s Services department, fulfils its statutory duties.
I could write the book about the shifts from early intervention , assessment, therapy - decision making to what seems to me to be a constant need to re-invent the wheel. The research base has been there since I qualified in 1980. It needs investment. It needs a staff group well trained before qualification, with ongoing good quality training throughout working lives. It needs clinical, administrative and supportive supervision for sw staff and others in the multi agency network. It needs ‘working together’ with sw, police, health, education effectively sharing information and decision making.
Some areas set up these systems. Never easy, never 100 % effective but miles ahead of where we are now.
I wonder - would our current govt be prepared to invest. Maybe bring some of us oldies back to help

Sadly, these kind if families are adept at swerving attention- moving frequently, " home schooling " the children, not registering with a GP etc. I found it very frustrating as a Headteacher.

the style now is to work with the dysfunctional family and the parents control the action but no thought has been given to what you do when the parents will not co-operate.

If someone one is refusing mental treatment they need, they can be sectioned and held and medicated against their will. Surely it is possible to devise something similar for families that will not co-operate with Social Services.

So frequently with many of the cases of child murder that end in court, the famiyl concerned, prior to the death, had been refusing to co-operate with social services.

Glorianny

I wondered if as a dance teacher she was entitled to more money during lockdown as she was unable to work.

Yes, that's possible. The benefit cap wouldn't have applied to her either, as she was working.

It's a bit strange. Gemma Brogan ran a dance school and was posting regularly on Facebook until the end of 2021. Her posts are full of encouragement and praise for the children at the school, but she had children at home who were being neglected.

I wondered if as a dance teacher she was entitled to more money during lockdown as she was unable to work.

vampirequeen

According to the UK gov website there is no way they could get £7000 a month in benefits.
www.gov.uk/benefit-cap/benefit-cap-amounts

Yes, they could.

www.gov.uk/benefit-cap/when-youre-not-affected

It's possible that they receive disability payments for the children and/or one of them is working. The cap only applies if all adults are unemployed.

The judge accepted that their income was £7,000 a month, all from 'benfits' and judges are usually very careful that anything they say like that is verifiable.

Could they have been getting funds for assistance from other sources? What still hasnt been explained is what all this money was being spent on, as it clearly wasn't being spent on the children and as taxpayers it seems reasonable to broadly expect money given to people to help them care for their family should be spent on that.

Clearly a lot went on the adult males back. he was wearing fashionable and expensive clothes and was impeccably groomed. But eeven so that would only account for about one of the seven thousands every month.