Transitional Element for Tax Credit-only claimants

I’ve been looking at the guidance again, and perhaps I misunderstood Rachel’s original post in this thread, but I think that where the claimant is actually receiving Carer’s Allowance, then the calculator will include the Carer Element in the Indicative UC Amount (see section 1.5 of the guidance).

So with regards to the Carer Element at least, only where the claimant is not receiving Carer’s Allowance, but is actually caring and declares that they are caring when making their UC claim, will the calculator be wrong.

Charles - 29 August 2023 09:34 AM

I’ve been looking at the guidance again, and perhaps I misunderstood Rachel’s original post in this thread, but I think that where the claimant is actually receiving Carer’s Allowance, then the calculator will include the Carer Element in the Indicative UC Amount (see section 1.5 of the guidance).

So with regards to the Carer Element at least, only where the claimant is not receiving Carer’s Allowance, but is actually caring and declares that they are caring when making their UC claim, will the calculator be wrong.

I have read that section several times in the guidance. I thought the same as you initially - but questioned it because of 2.10 and 2.11 of that same guidance. I wondered if DWP benefits in 1.5 relates to claimants of IS, JSA and ESA and not other DWP benefits. 2.10 seems to send the agent to the notify existing benefits to-do only in JSA, ESA and IS cases. Outside of that 2.11 refers to the benefits tab in CIS to get wider benefit information. Perhaps I am reading too much into it!

On a separate issue Charles - did you have any thoughts on the capital question in post 29?

LITRG

The more recent guidance seems to be more explicit that they only look at IR-ESA, IB-JSA and IS to see whether they’re a carer -

1.7: Is the claimant a carer?
Where the claimant was in receipt of Income Support IS, Jobseekers Allowance
(income based) JSA (IB) or Employment and Support Allowance (income related)
ESA (IR), this information can be found by checking the ‘Agent Notes’ section of the
completed ‘Notify existing benefits’ to-do, or in the ‘Post-termination claim TP
request’ information where the claim was made after the migration deadline.
If the claimant was not in receipt of IS, JSA (IB) or ESA (IR), there will not be a
‘Notify existing benefits’ to-do. In these cases, answer ‘No’ when asked ‘Is the
claimant a carer?’.

Found here - https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/1005927/response/2395158/attach/4/Manually%20calculating%20the%20transitional%20protection%20top%20up%20payment.pdf?cookie_passthrough=1

And seems to be confirmed in what the DWP sent to me -
“Currently, as we calculate the indicative amount for UC, we only factor in elements of UC that are present within the existing legacy benefit claimants, therefore unclaimed housing costs, or carers allowance are not taken into account for the indicative UC.”

I’m not a grammar expert but my reading is that the comma suggests all Carer’s Allowance not just unclaimed CA is ignored. And the Carer Element is not ‘within the existing legacy benefits’.

Same as LITRG my understanding is that the ‘notify benefits’ to-do exists if the claimant was on ESA, JSA or IS but otherwise the benefit info is in CIS.

Obviously it’s possible that something behind the scenes overrides a ‘no’ answer if there’s CA in payment but I’m not sure.

I have my first client with a migration notice.  working ft, tc only, no hb as capital over £16k.

I dont have their tax credit award yet to do a comparison but was searching here to get some things clear in my own head and now I just want to check I have followed this right…

1. going by the guidance it looks like when calculating the transitional amounts that the DWP wouldnt take into acount the housing element when doing the comparison to see if transitional protection applies and if so how much? if thats the case then for a client like this that would be in their favour…but….it doesnt look like they should be doing this?

2. this client gets a disabled worker element and even though working would likely get either LCFW/LCFWRA if assessed…once the transitional element is calculated its fixed is my understanding of it so that would mean any work allowance and/or LCFWRA element added later would see them better off again?

3. on the negative side up to £16k tarrif income would be counted as income and after 12 assessment periods they would lose uc totally if not below the £16k?

my first one so sorry if I have not followed this or missed anything obvious.

I think your point 1 is correct - that’s what they’re doing but may not be correct

Point 2 is incorrect - if they get awarded LCWRA element that will eat into any TP - transitional element in only fixed for first AP and then increase in any other element bar childcare will erode it - work allowances don’t impact on TP as they’re nothing to do with the maximum award

Point 3 is correct

I think that’s right ;)

thanks daphne, no idea where I picked up the idea it was a fixed amount going forward.

stevenmcavoy - 31 August 2023 04:38 PM

thanks daphne, no idea where I picked up the idea it was a fixed amount going forward.

Probably because that’s how the SDP transitional compo works.

Elliot Kent - 31 August 2023 06:38 PM

stevenmcavoy - 31 August 2023 04:38 PM

thanks daphne, no idea where I picked up the idea it was a fixed amount going forward.

Probably because that’s how the SDP transitional compo works.

Not any more: SDP element now behaves exactly like a transitional element and will be eroded by subsequent increases to other elements.

Yes quite, I should know that because I am at the UT on it.

Read - “worked”.

I picked up a TC migration case recently, client is on TC as a disabled worker, and is a carer for a disabled adult, was also on HB but UC had no information about the HB, so the data coming over seems to be flawed, basically shouldn’t have had a migration notice, raised it with the UC team, am now waiting on the technical team to decide if the migration notice should be cancelled, its very worrying as the TP element would be incorrect for my client

LITRG - 29 August 2023 01:38 PM

I have read that section several times in the guidance. I thought the same as you initially - but questioned it because of 2.10 and 2.11 of that same guidance. I wondered if DWP benefits in 1.5 relates to claimants of IS, JSA and ESA and not other DWP benefits. 2.10 seems to send the agent to the notify existing benefits to-do only in JSA, ESA and IS cases. Outside of that 2.11 refers to the benefits tab in CIS to get wider benefit information. Perhaps I am reading too much into it!

On a separate issue Charles - did you have any thoughts on the capital question in post 29?

LITRG

RachelUCN - 30 August 2023 10:33 AM

The more recent guidance seems to be more explicit that they only look at IR-ESA, IB-JSA and IS to see whether they’re a carer -

1.7: Is the claimant a carer?
Where the claimant was in receipt of Income Support IS, Jobseekers Allowance
(income based) JSA (IB) or Employment and Support Allowance (income related)
ESA (IR), this information can be found by checking the ‘Agent Notes’ section of the
completed ‘Notify existing benefits’ to-do, or in the ‘Post-termination claim TP
request’ information where the claim was made after the migration deadline.
If the claimant was not in receipt of IS, JSA (IB) or ESA (IR), there will not be a
‘Notify existing benefits’ to-do. In these cases, answer ‘No’ when asked ‘Is the
claimant a carer?’.

Found here - https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/1005927/response/2395158/attach/4/Manually%20calculating%20the%20transitional%20protection%20top%20up%20payment.pdf?cookie_passthrough=1

And seems to be confirmed in what the DWP sent to me -
“Currently, as we calculate the indicative amount for UC, we only factor in elements of UC that are present within the existing legacy benefit claimants, therefore unclaimed housing costs, or carers allowance are not taken into account for the indicative UC.”

I’m not a grammar expert but my reading is that the comma suggests all Carer’s Allowance not just unclaimed CA is ignored. And the Carer Element is not ‘within the existing legacy benefits’.

Same as LITRG my understanding is that the ‘notify benefits’ to-do exists if the claimant was on ESA, JSA or IS but otherwise the benefit info is in CIS.

Obviously it’s possible that something behind the scenes overrides a ‘no’ answer if there’s CA in payment but I’m not sure.

Thanks Victoria and Rachel. Yes, it definitely seems to be like you say, particularly when looking at the updated guidance Rachel obtained.

But I’m now wondering what the significance is of the line in the guidance which states (the older guidance has similar wording):

It is important that all verification to-dos are completed on time so that the claimant’s Transitional Protection top-up payment can be calculated. This includes housing, capital, and children.

If all the information is taken from legacy benefits, then why is this important? Does this mean they are using information from the claim form, at least in some circumstances?

Regarding the capital issue specifically, I don’t have anything to add unfortunately. And I still haven’t actually had a TP case in practice yet! But I am wondering why the UC award in your example is only £70 less than it should be? Surely it should be £174 less?

Charles - 01 September 2023 11:54 AM

But I’m now wondering what the significance is of the line in the guidance which states (the older guidance has similar wording):

It is important that all verification to-dos are completed on time so that the claimant’s Transitional Protection top-up payment can be calculated. This includes housing, capital, and children.

If all the information is taken from legacy benefits, then why is this important? Does this mean they are using information from the claim form, at least in some circumstances?

I agree some of the to-dos at the beginning are a bit confusing. 1.3 of the new guidance asks them to make sure that the ‘calculate student income’ to-do has been completed - which from my understanding of what you found out Charles is irrelevant to the Transitional Element.

I guess they want to make sure everything’s in order before they calculate the TE but it does seem weird.

I wonder whether there are some thoughts about a more complex erosion process?

Cobi27 - 17 August 2023 12:37 PM

IIDB. Which I only noticed as they currently aren’t taking this into account within the “unearned” income.
Then when trying to work out the amount of TE that they got, it only was making sense without Housing Costs in the indicative amount and without taking IIDB as unearned income.

However was it not included due to it not being taken into account in Tax Credits?

Not sure if you got any more info on this but I think this makes sense with what we’ve been thinking about how the DWP get information about benefit income. From the guidance, it looks like they get that information from searchlight/CIS and someone who used to work at HB told us that that wouldn’t have any info on IIDB. So I assume the DWP aren’t including it in the indicative uc amount because they’re not getting info about it.

Obviously I say that it makes sense in that I can see how they missed it - it’s a big oversight if that is what’s happening. I don’t know what is / isn’t available on searchlight/CIS to know any wider implications (if I’m correct about them getting info about benefit income from that source).

I understand that CA are now telling Help To Claim staff not to undertake TE calculations until this is sorted out, and that DWP will issue a further statement on the matter in October.

Going well, isn’t it?