Carer element and housing costs contribution

When a person is receiving carer’s allowance and the person that they are caring for dies, they continue to receive CA for eight weeks. If they make a claim for UC after the death (e.g. if the person being cared for was their partner and the legacy benefits were in their name), the award should include a carer element because, even though they are no longer caring for someone, they are receiving CA. We are aware that people in this situation are not getting the carer element, even though their UC award is reduced by the CA.

Another issue that we have been told about is that housing costs contributions are being applied to the housing costs element even if an exemption applies, for example if the non-dependant is receiving PIP. While this can be manually overidden, it is our understanding that this needs to be done every assessment period and so the UC claimant needs to spot incorrect payments and inform the DWP of this each month.

If you have clients who have been affected by either of these issues, please contact me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), as I am looking for examples of these problems for a report. Thanks.