I have a client who is a single parent claiming income support. Her only daughter's date of birth is 08/10/1999. As things stand currently, my understanding is that she would be scheduled to move to jobseeker's allowance from October 2011, when her child turns 12.

She is currently doing an Access course and wants to start a university course in September 2010. As far as I can understand from the regulations about transitional protection for lone parent students, this would make no difference, as it simply means that her income support entitlement will end at the date it was scheduled to end when her couse started, ie October 2011.Therefore she will move to JSA and not be able to study full time while receiving JSA.

Does anyone else have any further thoughts or experience of this issue as it is slightly unclear to me from the regulations?

Many thanks

Josh

As her child is 10 on 08/10/2009, she is one of the single parents who is actually scheduled to begin the transition from IS to JSA which commences on 26/10/2009 (Phase 2). For existing IS claimants, DWP say that single parents with a youngest child aged 10 or over will be invited to a voluntary interview from 12 April 2010 and from 8 September 2010, most will be unable to claim IS.

However, for students, regulations allow a single parent to remain on IS until at least the date when:

- the course ends or they stop attending, or
- their youngest child reaches the age at which benefit entitlement would have ended under the rules which were in place when they started the course (i.e. 16 before 24.11.08, 12 before 26.10.09 or 10 before 25.10.10), which ever comes first.

For Phase 2 single parents who started or start a full time course before 25 October 2009, their entitlement will end when they stop attending the course, or when their youngest child reaches age 12, whichever comes first. As the Access course and the degree course are separate courses, I read this as implying that her IS ceases when the Access course finishes.

I could be wrong on this, in fact I would hope that I am for her sake. My information is from the JCP information pack (pdf file).

Another issue lone parent students (particularly those in higher education) should consider is whether the transitional protection rules will apply to them in practice. It only applies while they remain entitled to Income Support. Many students may find that their student income is to high to get IS (except in the summer vacataion) thus breaking their claim and transitional protection will not apply in practice. In other words they will have no entitlement to IS once they start their course or in future vacations.

Thank you for your help.

I have checked again and it seems I was reading an old or incorrect version of the JCP Information Pack - the version I was using clearly says that parents in this group will lose IS entitlement when their youngest child turns 12, but the current version that you linked to states that it is 11 - which makes more sense.

Best wishes
Josh

Ah yes, there was indeed a printing error inre: the age of 12 in an earlier version of that JCP Info Pack.