Severe disability premiums and carers allowance

I saw a married couple last week who are both in receipt of high rate care component of DLA and low rate mobility component.  They have no dependents.  The husband is claiming Carers Allowance to look after his wife and he is also receiving Income Support for both of them.  His IS award will be £136.75from April which consists of the disability premium £39.85, carers premium £30.05 and disability income guarantee £19.65.  Income taken off this is £55.55 for Carers Allowance.

I am wondering whether they would be better off if they both claimed carers allowance for caring for each other so they would receive 2 Carer premiums in their personal allowance or whether they should come off Carers Allowance altogether and claim the Severe Disability premium which would make them a lot better off.  However I am not sure if they would have problems doing this ie would they be treated as claiming the wrong benefit (page 50 CPag) or treated as if theyreceive income that they were deliberately failing to apply for (p 54, CPAG) or deliberately depriving themselves of this (CA) in order to qualify for or increase therir entitlement to benefit. (p54, CPAG) and P905-deprivation of income.

Also one of my colleagues has said she thinks she has read that you can claim one lot of SDP as well as Carers Allowance if you are a couple.  I can’t find any information about this.

My feeling is that these rules would apply in this case but I would welcome some feedback from anyone who has come across a similar case.

We have couples where they both claim CA for looking after each other and also get the two SDP’s and two CP’s.  However they can only do this because they do not actually get CA as they get another benefit which overlaps with it - such as state pension or IB/ESA. You only need the person to be actually entitled to CA and the SDP is wiped out.

There have been discussions on here before about the giving up of the CA and deprivation etc - the consensus always seems to be to tell the dept that they no longer care for each other - then CA has to stop and the SDP can be claimed.

i have known several cases over the years where a carer has cancelled their claim to carer’s allowance in order for an SDP to come into effect, and no problems have ever arisen from the action

The carer doesn’t get the SDP, it’s the person cared for who gets it. If they were living separately, the carer gets no additional benefit for giving up the claim to CA, so isn’t depriving him/herself of anything. It’s the person cared for whose benefits go up. It might look a bit more problematic on account of the aggregation of a couple’s resources, but arguably the same ought to apply. But they must give up the whole claim and lose the carer premium.

Helen - the info in the disability rights handbook at pages 133-134 is really clear and will answer your questions i should think.