benefit cap letters

Jane OP - 09 May 2012 02:16 PM

How are they defining ‘household’? The way they are using it seems to sound more like what I understand to be a ‘benefit family’ ie partner and dependant children. 

My understanding of a household was that is was quite possible for a non dependant to be part of your household.

As far as I’m aware they haven’t yet.  Section 96 of the Act refers to single people and couples and refers to regulations made under this section.  So, I presume further definitions will be contained in secondary legislation, if at all.  The current position for benefits like IS and JSA is contained in section 137 of the SSC&BA; 1992 for which a household does not include non-deps.  I’m not rushing to bet money that that state of affairs will be carried over to UC.

The definition of a non-dep is a person who normally resides with you and doesn’t fall into any of the exempt categories (partner, child or young person you are responsible for, carer paid for by another organisation, tenant/lodger, co-owner or renter of property, or resident landlord). It can include adult children and other relatives such as siblings and parents, friends, carers who are not paid for (but then NB the effect of DLA/AA), and it doesn’t include people who only stay occasionally as they may normally reside elsewhere.
There is thus a clear overlap with say disputed LTAHAW cases, where a supposed partner who is not living with the claimant under under a commercial agreement may be found to be living with them as a non-dependant as a member of the household. I have seen tribunal cases where the authority (DWP/LA) has accepted that people are not LTAHAW but is still pursuing an overpayment based on a non-dependant deduction.

Peter Turville - 04 May 2012 10:30 AM

It is likely that some (all?) LAs have now received their list of potentially affected claimants. In Oxford City the number is about 230 ‘households’. The council is weeding through this list to try to isolate obvious errors (i.e. double conting where both partners are identified on the list as ‘households’).

Not aware of any claimants who have received their letter yet. Note NAWRA are suggesting there may be significant errors in those identified (i.e. claimants who are exempt from the cap due to a child who has entitlement to DLA).

Regarding this and the Rightsnet news story today- sorry if I’m being too simplistic about this but I can’t find any detail of the specifics re concerns about errors.  Do we know if any of this is about children being 1 year older by next April so either certainly or potentially (depending on their current age) no longer being dependent when the cap comes in? I’m trying to draft a summary for our website and need to decide if I should stress potential errors or not.

It looks like the Secretary of State has found a fail safe method of ensuring that claimants are not misinformed about their welfare… after they have been guillotined… sorry….. capped.

You dont write out….. (too difficult)

You provide an an online calculator so your lucky claimant can discover the good news himself. 

Have I miuderstood?

I have come accross a family with seven dependent children. My estimate is a loss of all Housing Benefit of nearly £100 per week. No letter has been sent by DWP ( I have confirmed with local authority they have not had her listed). On Income Support. There are two children who will be aged 16 and 17 but they are remaining in non advanced education. It is rather concerning that DWP has given no warning about the likely impact of the benefit cap.

Can’t say that the online calculator is looking like a feasible option, if the experience of the tax calculator is anything to go by.

A new government internet service allowing people to check how their income tax and national insurance is spent, has struggled on its first day.

From about midday the calculator was only displaying an error message saying it was unavailable.

Online tax calculator falls over

Attached English and Welsh version of July 2012 benefit cap letter which will be going out to about 17,000 new cases over next few days.

Thanks to the DWP for permission to publish them to forum.