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Dependent child in education - UC refusing to include on claim from september after 19th birthday

DWRS
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Durham County Council Welfare Rights

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I am working with a family, mum and son who is 19yrs and suffers from learning disabilities. She claimed UC in December 2017 following the death of her husband and was paid standard allowance and carers element for her and child responsibility element and child disability element for her son who is in receipt of enhanced levels of PIP. Her son is in full time education and turned 19yrs in June 2018. When she checked her payments in September she noticed both elements for her son were missing and he was no longer on her UC claim. She advised through the journal her son was still a dependent child as she received child benefit for him and he was accessing full time education. She also rang and spoke to someone in UC 3 days later to try and resolve this issue. The lady she spoke to apologised and said she would add back on the child responsibility element but was having trouble re adding the child disability element as for some reason it wasn’t ‘transferring over’. She also advised she would get her work coach to contact her to discuss her claim and try to add the appropriate elements back on her claim. October came and again she was paid no elements for her child.

After many calls to UC we have now been advised that the elements for her son cannot be paid from the 1st September after his 19th birthday.

I have looked at reg 5 of the UC regs about the meaning of ‘qualifying young person’. it states the following:

Meaning of “qualifying young person”

5.—(1) A person who has reached the age of 16 but not the age of 20 is a qualifying young person for the purposes of Part 1 of the Act and these Regulations—

(a) up to, but not including, the 1st September following their 16th birthday; and
(b) up to, but not including, the 1st September following their 19th birthday, if they are enrolled on, or accepted for, approved training or a course of education—
(i) which is not a course of advanced education,
(ii) which is provided at a school or college or provided elsewhere but approved by the Secretary of State, and
(iii) where the average time spent during term time in receiving tuition, engaging in practical work or supervised study or taking examinations exceeds 12 hours per week.

(2) Where the young person is aged 19, they must have started the education or training or been enrolled on or accepted for it before reaching that age.
(3) The education or training referred to in paragraph (1) does not include education or training provided by means of a contract of employment.
(4) “Approved training” means training in pursuance of arrangements made under section 2(1) of the Employment and Training Act 1973(1) or section 2(3) of the Enterprise and New Towns (Scotland) Act 1990(2) which is approved by the Secretary of State for the purposes of this regulation.
(5) A person who is receiving universal credit, an employment and support allowance or a jobseeker’s allowance is not a qualifying young person.

Under Tax Credits as long as the young person was enrolled on the course before they turned 19yrs they could continue to be awarded child tax credit up until the child’s 20th birthday. This does not seem to be the same case for UC.

I am wondering if someone would be able to clarify this issue for me. Do the child elements stop on the September after the child turns 19yrs or can it continue up until they turn 20yrs?

It also concerned me when I spoke to UC and were quoting their own regulations at them they asked me where I got this information from and advised me they were googling the answers to my questions, instead of using their own regulations. They sent me links to entitled to which offered guidance on this issue and could not provide me with any regs they were using to refuse awarding child elements.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated before I go down the route of claiming UC for this young person in his own right and his claim not being able to be paid until it has been decided he has LCWRA as he is a student.

Timothy Seaside
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Housing services - Arun District Council

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Yes, this is true: UC is less generous than CTC. UC stops the money at the start of the academic year when the child will turn 20, while CTC stops on their 20th birthday.

Gareth Morgan
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Timothy Seaside - 23 October 2018 09:50 AM

Yes, this is true: UC is less generous than CTC. UC stops the money at the start of the academic year when the child will turn 20, while CTC stops on their 20th birthday.

But if they are 19 on the 2nd of September UC continues until they’re 20?

HB Anorak
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Benefits consultant/trainer - hbanorak.co.uk, East London

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Gareth Morgan - 23 October 2018 11:23 AM
Timothy Seaside - 23 October 2018 09:50 AM

Yes, this is true: UC is less generous than CTC. UC stops the money at the start of the academic year when the child will turn 20, while CTC stops on their 20th birthday.

But if they are 19 on the 2nd of September UC continues until they’re 20?

Looks that way.  It kind makes policy sense to me that an entire academic year cohort ceases to be dependent on the same date - under the old rules it could be argued that parents get something of a windfall if their older teenage son or daughter is “young for their age” as it were: they get an extra year of study as a dependant which is not available to older members of the same cohort.  In Gareth’s example, they would qualify throughout the same stage of their education as someone whose birthday is 31 August - the “rising 19” year is covered.

Timothy Seaside
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Gareth Morgan - 23 October 2018 11:23 AM

But if they are 19 on the 2nd of September UC continues until they’re 20?

No, it can’t go on until they’re 20, because the very latest it can stop is 31 August before their 20th birthday. But in some ways this is fairer (levelling down of course) because it treats everybody in a school year the same, regardless of when in the year their birthday is.