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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Other benefit issues  →  Thread

Carers allowance and direct payments

virtuallysue
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First Wessex

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Total Posts: 1

Joined: 31 March 2017

My client provides care for her elderly mother of at least 35 hours a week.  The mother has also been assessed for direct payments and carers attend in the morning and again in the evening to assist with getting up and putting to bed.

My client does things like housework, preparing food, providing company and general care needs during the day.

My client has been claiming carer’s allowance and has now been told her by mother’s social worker that she should not be claiming this as the mother receives direct payments and the daughter should be looking after her mum out of love.
 
I have had a read through DM guidance and I can’t find anything at all about when other care is also being provided.

Cl provides 35 hours care per week and mother agreess she provides the care and therefore meets criteria.

I don’t want to advice my (extremely worried) client without a bit more to back this up.

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Information and advice resources - Age UK

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In my very humble opinion, social workers should stick to social working and social care and leave the benefit advice to benefit advisers. Provided your client can show the DWP that they do provide 35 hours of care a week, there’s no reason at all why this can’t be combined with direct payments and other carers coming into help.

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Information and advice resources - Age UK

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Just to also clarify, there also shouldn’t be any risk at all in the other direction, insofar as the direct payments are concerned.

Peter Donohue
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Salford Welfare Rights

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????....so the daughter should give up her Carers Allowance and (possibly) create an additional amount of income for mum (via SDP?) so that the Local Authority can then assess and increase its care charge contribution to mum?????

...or is that just my cynicism?

whatever reasons are behind the SW’s views, I completely agree with the last post…....there is nothing to stop anyone who provides the 35 hrs claiming CA in this scenario…...even if (in a parallel universe) the LA was providing a direct payment (or indeed another form of care arrangement) in the equivalent of 24/7 care to mum (as if), there would be nothing to stop daughter providing the requisite 35 hrs to meet any gaps in that 24/7 care (or “doubling up” the care where appropriate).

Completely out of order in my view