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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Universal credit administration  →  Thread

Permitted Work under UC?

MaggieB
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Dorchester CAB

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Has anyone heard if there will be PW allowed under UC?(with appropriate earnings disregard of course!)
No mention of it in CPAG’s ‘UC What you need to know’ publication and haven’t seen any reference to it anywhere else

Gareth Morgan
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No idea either.  If it comes it will be somewhere in the detail yet to be drafted.

Paul Treloar
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I’ll try to check up through Disability Benefits Consortium, to see whether anyone else has any ideas on this at the moment. Given the importance in helping people think about moving back into paid work, one would hope that there has been some thinking going on within DWP.

Gareth Morgan
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Thinking about it a little, while watching the not very good 2nd Italian Job, I’m not sure permitted work has any relevance in UC. 
Hours of work won’t matter. 
Earnings disregards are, broadly, higher, even at floor levels, for all, although single people will be below the current disregard figure. 
The relationship with housing costs makes twiddling disregards very tricky.
LCW and LCWRA components are there already. 

What’s to gain?

seand
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“what’s to gain?”

well, keeping the ‘ESA’ component in UC while still doing some work, even if for a time limited period

Gareth Morgan
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Yes but I haven’t seen any proposals on LCWRA / LCW compomnents in UC that link them to earnings / hours / thresholds yet.

GAD
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Saw this quote from Chris Grayling in Hansard 20/2/12.

“We are currently considering how the permitted work rules for ESA may change once universal credit is introduced.

The Department is committed to engaging with organisations representing disabled people on an ongoing basis as part of our wider consultation on the implications of our proposals for welfare reform, to ensure that the social security system supports disabled people and those with health conditions in the most sensitive, fair and appropriate way. As part of this engagement, I would be happy to meet with representatives of the Down’s Syndrome Association.”

Not sure how informative it is.

eamon75
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Law Centre NI Training

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HiAll,

I am just wondering if there has been any further info. on this issue?
Is it fair to think that as long as a person has LCW/LCWRA and earn under the threshold( threshold amount dependant upon whether housing costs are included etc) they will not have any problems /issues raised?
In short if you have LCW and earn under your Work Allowance you will not have any issues?

Any help or links to sites/info on this issue would be helpful?

Thanks
Eamon

Ken Butler
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There are no equivalent of the permitted work rules under UC.

If someone was getting CBESA and HB and then is moved to UC by ‘managed migration’ then the loss of the HB permitted work earnings disregard will be ‘made up’ by UC transitional protection.

At that point they will be no worse off by not having the protection of the permitted work rules.

However, they could still be worse off overall depending on whether their local Council Tax Support scheme has a permitted work disregard.

However, someone getting CBESA who needs to make a new UC clam, for example because of a new rental liability, will lose out as the UC earnings disregards are less generous than the permitted work disregard.

This means that there is a financial disincentive to undertake the full allowable amount of permitted work under UC.

In turn, this is compounded by the LCW element only being payable for those undertaking work of 16 hours or above if they are in receipt of DLA or PIP.

stevejohnson
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Hi Ken,

Reg 41 of the UC Regs is not the easiest to follow, by my take on it is that you can be sick and THEN work without too much immediate trouble, but there are more problems if you are worker who THEN wants to be seen as sick under the UC system. Its this latter scenario where the 16 hour/DLA thing seems to apply. Do you agree?

So if you are already a sick person under UC rules who now wants to work and have both statuses in UC, do you have to tell DWP when you start work? Looks to me like they will only take this change into account when you have your next WCA. I suppose the safest thing is to tell them anyway, in case the nature of the work raises the issue of whether you are sick, and prompts an earlier WCA. The risk of a 100% recoverable overpayment and the possibility of a civil penalty means UC claimants should report even more, when in doubt.

What do you think?

Steve

Ken Butler
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Hi Steve,

I think you’re right about someone having more of a problem under the UC system if they are a worker who then wants to be seen as sick - due to the 16 hour/DLA thing.

I’m not sure though that it might be unproblematic where that you are sick and then work.

If you do this and you don’t receive DLA or PIP will then you be prioritised for a new WCA (irrespective of how recently you may have had one)?

[ Edited: 11 Jun 2013 at 12:08 pm by Ken Butler ]
Gareth Morgan
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Ken Butler - 10 June 2013 12:15 PM

the LCW element only being payable for those undertaking work of 16 hours or above if they are in receipt of DLA or PIP.

Remember the hours don’t matter, it’s a threshold amount based on 16 hours at NMW.  It’s immaterial if that threshold is reached in 3 hours or 30 hours.

Robbie Spence
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Ken Butler - 11 June 2013 09:57 AM

I’m not sure though that it might be unproblematic where you are sick and then work.

Just to add to Ken’s comment. If you work and earn over 16xNMW hourly wage, ie £99.04 pw or £420 a month, there are two ways to get LCW/LCWRA element under UC. We’ve updated our Factsheet F55 on UC to say:

“There is no permitted work under UC. Instead you will be encouraged to do some work, even if only for a few hours a week, if you can manage it. There will be no time limit to how many weeks you work. However there are special rules which affect whether you can get the limited capability for work (LCW) element or the limited capability for work and work-related activity (LCWRA) element if your weekly earnings are 16 times the national minimum wage.
  a.. If you have already been found to have LCW/LCWRA on an assessment before you start earning 16 times the national minimum wage you will continue to receive the element. You will only lose the LCW/LCWRA if you fail the work capability assessment (WCA) at a later claim review and so no longer have limited capability for work.
  b.. If you have not had a WCA before and you are earning 16 times the national minimum wage you will not be referred to a WCA to assess whether you are entitled to the LCW/LCWRA element unless you are entitled to attendance allowance (AA), disability living allowance (DLA) or the personal independence payment (PIP).”

Route (a) sort of fits the typical permitted work claimant who would (under current system) be moving off incapacity benefits or ESA into work and WTC. Whereas with the equivalent WTC provision you could keep if for year after year, under UC you’ll keep till your next WCA review and must pass each review to carry on getting it.

With thanks to Judy Scott of http://www.judyscottconsult.com for help on this point.

alban
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Do you have any idea yet how this relates to the ‘new’ rules for the WCA and contributory ESA?
and what about permitted work under contributory ESA rules—and UC better off issues?

Robbie Spence
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alban - 17 June 2013 01:05 PM

how this relates to the ‘new’ rules for the WCA and contributory ESA—and UC better off issues?

I don’t know how this relates to the ‘new’ rules for the WCA. I’m sure permitted work under contributory ESA will stay the same. But the UC better/worse off issue is that, while permitted work earnings were entirely disregarded for HB, the equivalent for UC renters is the Work Allowance, which is not as high as £99.50 a week. (There is a £149pw top LCW/LCWRA Work Allowance but it is only for Non-Renters.)

alban
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It’s going to be similar to the position under incapacity benefit and income support - with issues around passported HB etc - but if anything even more complicated, what with interaction of UC housing costs and level of disregard, plus claimant potentially coming off contributory ESA while keeping limited capability for work for UC purposes
I’m not sure how advisers will explain this to a client

Judy Scott
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Council Tax Support and earning disregards
Does anybody know whether there are local authorities that have set the earning disregard amount for Council Tax Support lower than the Universal Credit disregard level for renters? It would be useful to get a picture of Council Tax Support earning disregards nationally.

Gareth Morgan
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The default scheme regulations set the earnings disregards for non-Universal Credit cases at the usual £5 / £10 etc.

Where Universal Credit is in payment then there is an entirely separate set of rules for the applicable amount and income calculations.

Jon Blackwell
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Judy Scott - 18 June 2013 11:34 AM

Council Tax Support and earning disregards
Does anybody know whether there are local authorities that have set the earning disregard amount for Council Tax Support lower than the Universal Credit disregard level for renters? It would be useful to get a picture of Council Tax Support earning disregards nationally.

For non-UC claimants I’m only aware of one BA who have dropped the £99.50 higher permitted work disregard from their CTR scheme.

However, for UC claimants, the CTR default scheme for England (and the default scheme for Wales) require the BA to base CTR income and applicable amount on UC figures.

In particular :-

“the authority must ... use the calculation or estimate of the amount of the income of the applicant, or the
applicant and his partner jointly (as the case may be), made by the Secretary of State for the
purpose of determining the award of universal credit”  (converted to a weekly amount) as the income figure to use in their CTR calculation. (England DS para 37(1)(b)) [this amount is added to the UC payable to give the income for CTR]

DCLG intend this to mean the full UC income (ie UC part 2 earned plus part 3 unearned)  with *no* scope for further disregards under the default scheme.


The effect is that people on low earnings may lose out in terms of CTR when they move onto UC (even though the may gain in terms of UC)  [Gareth made the same point at Blackpool’s NAWRA meeting].

For people doing higher permitted work at around £99/week, the effect will be even harsher (they’ll lose out on the UC, because their work allowance will be around £44.30/week (assuming they have housing costs) instead of £99.50 HPWD [this was raised in CPAG Scotland’s workshop on this last week]) and then they’ll be hit by a reduction in their CTR (previously passported) as well.  This effect is exaggerated where the BA has an increased CTR income taper.

Most English BAs haven’t adopted the default scheme entirely, of course, but a large number have at least used this as the starting point for their regulations (including the UC provisions).

This is complicated by the fact that there are a large subset of English authorities that have adopted a scheme that follows the default scheme (in terms of UC claimants)  but then goes on to apply the standard (former CTB) unearned and earned disregards to the UC income figure. However, it’s not clear if this is intentional or a mistake. Many BAs have reserved powers to amend their schemes with respect to UC so it’s not clear that this further disregard (beyond the default position) will be honoured - it’s something I’m trying to find out but so far none of these BAs has acknowledged that their scheme differs from the DS with regards to UC.

Other BAs have developed their own approaches and some have mentioned the possiblility of full-passporting UC claimants in the short-term (like FSM, etc) but I’ve not spotted any who’ve written this into their regs so far.

The situation is different again under CTR in Scotland - I believe the scheme there also applies the traditional CTB disregards to a modified UC income but I understand that this may be under review.

[ Edited: 19 Jun 2013 at 09:24 am by Jon Blackwell ]