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Minimum income guarantee for social care

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I’m just looking into charges for home care for a client. The LA have taken the correct benefits into account but my question is about the MIG. For the personal allowance they have included the disability premium. Therefore they have allowed £72.40 basic allowance and £40.35 disability premium. However, under IS they would also be entitled to enhanced disability premium. So my questions is, should both premiums be included in the personal allowance?

Thanks

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Reg.7(5) The Care and Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources) Regulations 2014 should cover this situation (although note this is the made version so doesn’t contain updated rates):

(5) Where the adult concerned is a single person who is in receipt of, or the local authority considers would, if in receipt of income support, be in receipt of—

(a)disability premium, the amount of the applicable premium is £39.85;

(b)enhanced disability premium, the amount of the applicable premium is £19.45.

Current rates can be found in Local Authority Circular (DHSC)(2018)1.

Ask them for a review.

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Thanks Paul. That was my understanding but wanted to make sure.

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Thinking about it, would the fact the LA are only taking middle rate DLA into account as the client doesn’t receive night care affect it?

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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You must be recieving high rate care component DLA for enhanced disability premium with IS, so yes, that seems to be the issue here.

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Paul_Treloar_AgeUK - 03 May 2018 10:38 AM

You must be recieving high rate care component DLA for enhanced disability premium with IS, so yes, that seems to be the issue here.

She does receive high rate care but the LA are only taking the middle rate into account in the financial assessment as she isn’t funded for night care. This will change under PIP and they will take the full enhanced rate into account.

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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The fact they’re only taking mid-rate DLA into account due to no night time care and support being provided is good, as we’re hearing about many local authoritis taking the whole DLA award into account regardless now.

However, that doesn’t override the fact that high rate DLA does give rise to payment of EDP with IS and therefore the person should have EDP amount included in her MIG.

Your decision in discussion with your client might centre on whether she wants to risk them coming back and saying, ok, we’‘ll include EDP but we’re now going to take all of DLA into account as income.

We’ve got one case that’s gone to Ombudsman about taking whole DLA award into account where no night time care being given, but that’s probably months away from a decision.

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Thanks Paul, that’s really helpful. I would be interested in hearing the outcome of your Ombudsman case. Is there a thread I can follow?

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No but I’ll try to remember to post decision as and when it happens Phil.

Best of luck with this one.