Awesome.

Prior to the meeting, the minutes for which having been made confidential, the benefits agency sent me this gem.

Hench, confident of his latest work, had informed them of an imminent change in my circumstances...

It made me sweat a bit, until the Best Interests Meeting where he was removed from the case.

However, I breezed in there and told them he'd been removed, and filled in enough blanks to incriminate the council without thumping Igor. He'd called me earlier in the day to discuss things and was rather anxious as to what I'd be declaring.

Well, I didnt see any point in shooting myself in the foot with sanctions, so I kept it brief and stuck to the point.

Interesting.

They didnt seem bothered by the fact I'm owed all that money, because they have a solution. One that I've been scared away from with rumour, and advised against by WSCC employees - for good reason.

Universal Credit still isnt universal, and its still broken, but they have fixed some of the problems. Its designed to be fair, where existing benefits are not, and up til lately wouldnt support me.

Turns out the benefits agency arent the ogres they have appeared to be either thanks to the likes of Hench's skullduggery and are actually on my side.

So the UC deal is:

1 ) Over twice the income a month compared to Income Support

2) I can work as many hours a month I like so long as I declare earnings

3) I can earn nearly £300 a month before it affects UC, and then 60p for every pound over the cap is deducted from UC.

4) All of my rent is paid on top of the above figure directly to the landlord (and the Council can suck it).

5) I also still get Carer's Allowance on top of the above, £64 a week, until it is paid via UC eventually.

Soooo,

I can save up enough money fairly quickly for a solicitor to drag the District Council into a magistrates court and get my moolah back - meanwhile Igor has suddenly 'found' an advocate who can negotiate with them and is setting that up in any case.