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What is the rationale for the Carers Element of UC stopping the Cared for persons SDP?

JAS1
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Advice Worker, Gaddum Centre

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Hi,

I understand a Carers Allowance claim stopping someone’s SDP as they are basically the same amount of money give or take.

But Carers Element is only £162.92 per month. So the cared for loses £66.95 per week SDP but the Carer gains only £37.60 CE in their UC.

Is that right or have I missed something?

cheers

[ Edited: 30 Oct 2020 at 04:15 pm by JAS1 ]
Ianb
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Macmillan benefits team, Citizens Advice Bristol

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Doesn’t answer your question but just thought I’d note that this is exactly the same as for legacy benefits if the carer was also included on a means tested benefits claim, the carer premium in legacy benefits being equivalent to the UC carer element.

Timothy Seaside
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I think the question is more, why doesn’t the Carers Element match Carer’s Allowance, when CA is deducted pound for pound from UC. But the same is true with legacy benefits - if you’re getting one of those benefits then there’s a clear intention that you don’t get to hold on to the whole CA amount.

But it’s also true that a person can get CA and/or a CE in their UC when the person they care for was never entitled to an SDP. Just as it’s true that a person’s SDP will stop just because they have a non-dependant at home - which can mean they lose the SDP and nobody gets anything in return. SDP and CA/CE are not necessarily connected.

So I think the rationale is probably that the SDP is for the claimant to help them look after themselves. If they’ve got somebody looking after them, then they don’t need that extra money.
Separately, the CA is payment for looking after somebody, and they can keep it all as long as they aren’t claiming a means-tested income replacement benefit. And CE is the way to achieve that (whether they claim CA or not).

Va1der
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I think you’ve got it right. If there is no need for the work requirement for the carer to be removed, they are better off with the cared for keeping the SDP and paying the carer themselves. Of course UC is effectively abolishing the SDP, even people with the transitional element will eventually lose it through uprating - that would be the rationale, if anything!

In legacy this creates the situation where couples both on PIP DL are better off ‘not’ CA caring for each other. Always a bit awkward to explain.

Elliot Kent
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I agree with Timothy in that the purposes of the benefits are not the same. The SDP is (was) a recognition of additional need resulting from not having a carer. Carers Allowance is a recognition that a carer is providing a social good at a personal cost. The carers premium and carers element are a recognition that the carer is reasonably excluding themselves from the labour market and therefore they shouldn’t be expected to live off the baseline rates for the temporarily unemployed. I am not sure there is necessarily any significance to the extent to which the rates do or don’t correspond.

I suppose if you want the “DWP bad” answer, then it’s that the DWP does not believe that the SDP should exist and has positively acted to remove it from UC, so it stands to reason they would want less people to get it.

Ianb
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Va1der - 30 October 2020 05:19 PM

In legacy this creates the situation where couples both on PIP DL are better off ‘not’ CA caring for each other. Always a bit awkward to explain.

Unless they are pensioners in which case they can have two Severe Disability Additions and two Carer additions included in Pension Credit (assuming that the Carer’s Allowance is not paid due to State Pension), which is actually a bit odd in my opinion.

That situation could also apply if both claimants were receiving contribution based ESA with one having the income based top up. If both claimed CA the ESA would be paid rather than the ESA and again I think there could be both Severe Disability and Carer premiums included.

 

[ Edited: 30 Oct 2020 at 07:08 pm by Ianb ]
JAS1
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Interesting points thanks! Yeah I guess I should be grateful client has SDP as an option at all given lack of it in UC!

roecab
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Is it not more that the level of CA paid to the carer is roughly the same as the SDP so it is one or the other? Now there is no choice.

Mike Hughes
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I still think of the SDP/CA interaction as a throwback to the overlapping benefits rules back in the 70s in the sense that politicians and the old DHSS were adamant you had one role. You could not be a carer and a pensioner etc.

The idea that because someone has a carer they no longer need to pay for other things in plainly not a given. I have, for example, had a carer who was able to provide their 35 hours care in 2 very intense days from circa 7am to just after midnight but could then do no more in a week despite said person needing the same care for the rest of the week. Carer claims CA and there goes SDP. Utter nonsense.