Carer’s Element & CA and Disabled Child Elements & DLA. Missing elements and backdating issues

Howdi

I am an adviser for Citizens Advice, based in Great Ormond Street Hospital for children.

As such we see a number of cases where people are entitled to, but do not receive the Carer Element (CE) and/or the Disabled Child Element (DCE) in Universal Credit. In some cases over an extended period.

While we resolve the cases we see,  it must mean that there are a large number of mainly carers missing out on crucial, and notable financial support (up to around £550 pcm)  - sometimes for years.

I wondered what experience other advisers had of these issues.

The issues I have seen might be categorised as

1. Carer’s Allowance is deducted but no Carer’s element is applied.

In this case UC clearly have the information about the client being a carer, and the DWP has clearly decided that they are are a carer - by the fact of getting Carer’s allowance.

I suppose that there may be cases (e.g. if you get the LCWRA element?) that you may be a carer, getting CA but would not be paid a CE, though you should still be logged as a Carer on UC. However, this information is also available to UC.

2. Not backdating the DCE & CE upon to the date of the DLA entitlement, even if the date of change was put as a backdated date. Given that DLA new claim decisions are taking 2-4 months this would mean systematic loss of payments.

To be clear…when we see this, we always put a journal request, quoting the legislation and DM advice and insisting it goes to a Decision Maker. This has always been successful in getting it backdated. Thus it is not particularly an issue for those we see (as long as they remain in contact) but rather those we (or similar advice elsewhere) does not see.

3. Absence of DCE & CE due to a change of cirumstancess not being made on UC - in some cases over a number of years. Again we have had 100% in backdating using the above (point 2) method - sometimes after a long haul involving complaints. But again this leaves others in that situation.

Now, I do understand that the legislation & DM guidance is actually in this case better than the old Tax Credit rules where for backdating you had to tell them within 1 month of the decision. But it is the legislation nonetheless.

As UC is part of DWP as is DLA then there seems no reason they could not communicate. Short of this it would be about the importance of updating UC being emphasised front and central on DLA decision letters.

I too have seen these issues.

In some cases, clients have reported an award of a child’s DLA that is backdated a few months, immediately upon receipt of the DLA decision letter. UC have responded via the journal stating that since entitlement to DLA was reported late, it cannot be backdated. In one case, this was accompanied by a statement that the client should have reported that they were making a claim for DLA when they ordered the form; this is clearly ridiculous.

For me, the issue around deductions of Carers Allowance without the application of the carer element is common.

In two cases, clients receiving a state pension who had claimed Carers Allowance for a partner who was under state pension age but expected to reach that age within two months had Carers Allowance deducted from UC.  Initially UC refused to accept that only an underlying entitlement to Carers Allowance had been established and that no payment had, in fact, been received.

I find that I can resolve the issues by asking for a Mandatory Reconsideration quoting the relevant law, but it is frustrating to meet the same issues repeatedly.

To me, it seems that for UC, decisions are made by computer/scripts, Mandatory Reconsiderations by apprentices and appeals by grown-ups (if you are lucky).

I have a meeting with DWP tomorrow specifically to discuss the issue of carer element not being applied when carer’s allowance is in payment and being deducted from UC award which I’ll feed back on after. I will, if I get a chance, also bring up the disabled child element issue too tho that may have to wait for another day…

We too have seen cases where families have missed out on Disabled Child Element for years. ( Emerged on DLA review). Again seems no problem with backdating but there will be families who never realise that they are missing out. I wonder if part of the problem is the section in the Child DLA form which asks the parent if they are on Income Support? People claiming UC will of course tick No. That is the correct answer. I have started to cross out IS and write in UC in the hope that this helps. We can also advise the clients we see to put a note on their journals. But what about those who are left to complete forms without help?

I had my meeting last week with a couple of people who work on UC about the carer element issue - both people who work on the implementation and seem to know what they’re doing - I’ve dealt with them before. They are aware of the issue and have been looking into it and told me some interesting things -

- they sent a journal note to all claimants that they identified were on UC in receipt of CA but with no carer element in place (having weeded out any with LCWRA) asking them to confirm whether they were a carer - apparently all of them had said they were not a carer on their initial claim form
- only 33% of them responded although they now have 50% in payment

I pointed out that they shouldn’t need to contact them - they could just put the carer element into the max award - I directed them to reg 29 of the UC Regs which to me is clear that they must pay the carer element if the person has regular and substantial caring responsibilities for a severely disabled person which they clearly do!

They are going to go away and look at this but are also going to look at why people didn’t respond to journal message - I suggested they might not have seen as no conditionality if carers so might not look. They are going to check how many read the message and also what conditionality level they are on.

They are keen to get to the bottom of why people are declaring themselves as carers and are going to suggest some questions that I can put into a survey together for advisers to collate their views.

If anyone has ideas about questions to include on this survey to get all the information, then do let me know

I also raised the disabled child element issue. They are going to take a look into this too and I’ll feedback when I hear from them.

If anyone has any specific points or suggestions on the above, do let me know and I can feed them back - thanks.

We are currently speaking to a lot of carers on UC who are missing the DCE, the CE or both,  as part of a specific take up campaign aimed at carers on UC. Not many in our cohort have CA in pay but some have.

Reasons for not having declared their carer status include:
- not thinking they are a ‘carer’ of their own child
- having been advised previously by DWP staff on journal, helpline or in Jobcentre that you can’t have both CA and CE or that you can’t get any extra money only DLA itself
- not having any idea about the carer element in UC
- thinking or being misadvised that you can’t get CE of you work

It seems incredibly common for people to be missing these and to be initially refused arrears.

Thanks Sarah - very helpful - I raised that one about parents not viewing themselves as a ‘carer’ of their own child which they seemed to find difficult to comprehend - but definitely one that comes up all the time!

Sarah - I don’t know if you plan to write a short summary of your project, methods, and results at some point?

Owen - yes definitely

I just saw a a couple with husband with LCWRA and wife in receipt of CA as carer for adult son. No CE applied since start of UC claim although wife’s CA gets deducted as income. Seems that husband has been reported as carer in past, may have been by accident as the couple did not really understand that they have 2 separate online accounts and thought they could switch accounts via the to do tab which shows both parties’ to do

Just read Daphne’s post about the journal note, but I don’t think they received it.  So maybe the weeding out of LCWRA is done too throuroughly for couples as the non LCWRA recipient should still be entitled to CE, unless I got this wrong?

If the husband previously reported that he was caring for 35 hours per week, but the DM (or more likely the computer) decided correctly that he was not entitled to the Carer Element because someone else was getting CA for that disabled person, the computer doesn’t automatically transfer that caring declaration doesn’t transfer to the wife.

She would need to separately make her own caring declaration, giving the relevant date (which may be the date of the CA award, or the date of the qualifying disability benefit award if earlier). It seems that the UC computer doesn’t pick up on the CA.

I know it’s arguable that legally, the award of CA itself is evidence of the caring, without the need for ‘declaration’ under the changes of circs tab ... I’m just on about how it works in practice.