Backdated payment of child benefit

Hi everyone - we’ve recently supported a client to get a v big backdated payment of almost £11,000 (after she has recently been granted refugee status and therefore been able to claim back to when her children were born). My limited understanding is that backdated payments from the DWP should not be counted as savings and therefore affect overall benefit eligibility for one year (she also now receives UC, HB and is applying for UC LCWRA and CTR), however what I’m not sure about is whether the same also applies to backdated payments from HMRC as opposed to the DWP? Thanks in advance for any advice / info!

I think Child Benefit arrears are treated differently in UC and legacy benefits.  UC has a 12-month disregard for arrears of any “social security benefit” which is not included as income other than earnings.  The definition of “social security benefit” refers to “a benefit under any enactment relating to social security” and that includes Child Benefit under the SSC&B Act 1992.

Legacy benefits on the other hand only disregard arrears of means tested benefits, bereavement support, maternity allowance and PIP or its predecessors/equivalents

Thank you very much! I wonder how the council tax reduction decision makers will process this also…

If the CTR claimant is on UC, almost every local scheme adopts DWP’s income and capital assessment so the disregard will be carried over.  For non-UC cases, most schemes tend to shadow HB so ChB arrears will count as capital