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Moving to Universal Credit
i have spoken to a tenant who is a single parent claiming tax credits and child benefit for her 3 children all under 16yrs old. She does not claim HB and is aware if she wishes to claim for rent payments she will have to migrate to UC . The tenant works 16 hours and cannot work extra hours due to having commit time to her 7 yr old daughter who is awaiting a diagnosis for her medical condition . She has been told this could take up to 18 months . I have advised her to claim DLA for her child without the diagnosis . If DLA awarded i have advised she will be able to claim UC carer element and extra disabled child element depending upon the DLA award . The benefit calculation without these elements indicate she will be at least £50 better off per week . Her concern is the UC claimant commitment . At the moment tax credit is paid for 16 hours work . I have looked up UC and it seems 25 hours would have to be worked if the youngest child is 7 years old . is this correct ? Would the tenant be able to advise she can only work 16 hours and not be sanctioned ? Any advice would be appreciated
The current maximum hours expected from a parent of a 7-year-old is 25 hours, like you say, although this is expected to go up to 30 hours in the Autumn. The expected hours can be further reduced by the work coach based on the claimant’s circumstances, but of course there is no guarantee of them agreeing it is reasonable to do so.
It is also worth knowing about the “light touch regime”. This currently applies to single claimants earning the equivalent of 15 hours at minimum wage. This is due to go up to 18 hours soon.
Currently, if a claimant is in the light touch regime, they are basically left alone completely. However, from September, DWP is rolling out some sort of conditionality even for these claimants. I don’t know what this will mean in practice.
It’s important to realise that if you don’t meet the light touch regime threshold, then you would be expected to look for work up to your full expected hours (potentially 25 hours at the moment for your client), and not just the amount needed to reach the light touch regime threshold.
By the way, all thresholds are calculated based on earning minimum wage for the particular amount of hours, so if your client is earning more than minimum wage, that could help too.
(There is a slight twist in the rules, in that for the main conditionality threshold, it depends on the minimum wage applicable to you, but for the light touch regime, it always goes by the headline minimum wage level. I don’t think this will be relevant to your client as she is probably at least 23 years old, so will likely fall within the main minimum wage rates anyway.)
If your client qualifies for the carer element in hr UC, then there isn’t any work conditionality as far as I know.
Might be relevant that the low rate of disabled child element is higher in CTC. If this is what she’d qualify for the financial loss of not claiming UC would be less.
She is also in the group that will be targeted for managed migration first. I admittedly know very little about the transitional protection rules here, but some of that might influence her decision too(?)
If your client qualifies for the carer element in hr UC, then there isn’t any work conditionality as far as I know.
Yes, this is true. There is only a potential issue until DLA (MR Care or higher) is awarded (if it is).
Thanks for the information given very helpful and much appreciated . Unfortunately DLA has not been claimed yet but if awarded , that is interesting about the working hours being more relaxed if claiming UC Carers component