no not military might deserve it but seems unfair they get 7 week more and cheaper advance payment tho as we all disabled to use mobility scheme
Maurice,
It is really down to the fact that WPMS (and its predecessor the War Pensioners Vehicle Scheme) pre date the civilian mobility allowances by many years.
When the government of the day later introduced the civilian Mobility allowance, they chose, for whatever reason, to set it at a lower rate than the prevailing rate of WPMS. They also did not incorporate certain other things WPMS recipients receive such as the automatic transmission grant etc.
To this day the civilian allowances (DLA/PIP) have remained lower than WPMS as they are both increased annually by the same metric.
The lower AP’s for WPMS recipients reflects the fact that the WPMS weekly rate is higher. But WPMS and DLA/PIP/AFIP recipients both pay exactly the same amount overall for a vehicle over the course of a three-year (or extended) lease on the scheme.
However, the government back in 2004 did make changes to the military allowances for those injured in HM Armed Forces on or after 5th April 2005. They introduced the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme and subsequently the Armed Forces Independence Payment (AFIP) which they set equal to the lower civilian DLA/PIP ate.
Thus, there will become a point in the (hopefully distant) future when all of us ‘more mature’ injured/disabled veterans, who were injured pre-2005, will die off and WPMS will cease to exist.
Everyone will then be paid the same (lower) rate.
However, as I explained above, basically the present situation occurred when the then government of the day set the civilian Mobility Allowance lower than the military one!