QYP leaving college to care for disabled mother

My clients son is leaving his college course to care for her and claim carer’s allowance. Would the son claiming carer’s allowance affect child benefit continuing to be paid until the terminal date? My client also gets Widowed Parent’s Allowance and UC - am I correct in thinking the WPA would continue for as long as CB is in payment, and the UC child element would have to end in the assessment period in which she reports her son leaving education?

hi
Part of the qualifying criteria for Carers allowance is that the carer isnt in full time education, so child benefiot would end as soon as the claim for carers allowance is made.

Could the college not make any adjustments to accommodate his caring responsibilites so he can complete his course?

If that is not possible I would suggest that he claims UC in his own right as it will include the carer addition

Thank you for your replies.  I know that you can’t be receiving education and get carer’s allowance, but he is leaving college so he will be entitled to it, the question I had was, would the effect of a claim for carer’s allowance mean child benefit could no longer be paid up to the terminal date as it normally would when a child leaves education? If the effect of a claim is to end the child benefit immediately then it would be better for him just to apply for UC only, since carers allowance gets deducted from it anyway.

I guess if he claims UC in own right then that would also end the child benefit….

The answer is in Regulation 8 of the Child Benefit (General) Regulations 2006 as amended

Reg 8 provides

Child benefit not payable in respect of qualifying young person: other financial support
8.—(1) This regulation applies in the case of a person who has not attained the age of 20 years.

(2) The condition is that the person is not in receipt, in a week, of—

(a)income support,
(b)income-based jobseeker’s allowance within the meaning of section 1(4) of the Jobseekers Act 1995 or Article 3(4) of the Jobseekers (Northern Ireland) Order 1995,
(c)incapacity benefit by virtue of being a person to whom section 30A(1)(b) of SSCBA F1 or section 30A(1)(b) of SSCB(NI)A applies, .
(d)tax credit under the Tax Credits Act 2002, F4…
(e)[employment and support allowance payable under Part 1 of the Welfare Reform Act 2007]or
(f)universal credit under Part 1 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012] or Part 2 of the Welfare Reform (Northern Ireland) Order 2015].

Carers Allowance is not listed in Reg 8 so that means child benefit will remain payable until the terminal date

He could conceivably claim carers allowance initially and subsequently claim UC 5 weeks before the terminal date

That’s brilliant, thanks Stainsby

Normally for benefits “in receipt of” means “entitled to receipt of”, so if CB is the ‘better buy’, it might be worth waiting until the terminal date before claiming UC.