Direct Care Payments

I have a client who is in receipt of SP and the high rate of mobility and care of DLA.  Her husband is her carer and has just been awarded carers allowance.

She has also been awarded direct care payments from Social Services for her to use to pay to a carer.  She is using this to pay her husband who no longer works.

My question is, will these payments be counted as income for the purposes of Pension Credit and Housing Benefit?

Thanks

Yes. See R(IS)7/08 (Casewell - Court of Appeal). Direct Payments are disregarded on receipt by wife but count as earnings when received by husband. This was an IS decision but since it determines the classification of the payments as earnings it is very likely to apply to PC, HB and Carers Allowance. This is not generally a good arrangement.

Richard Atkinson

I’m assuming that the Local Authority is aware of the arrangement to pay her husband the DP…this is very much possible within the DP rules, but is not usually allowable unless it can be shown that is the only “satisfactory” way in which the care can be provided.

For the majority, a close relative living in the same household is not allowed to receive a DP from the person with whome they share the household.

Hopefully fine in your case, but I have come across people who have been allocated DP hours and then used them in this way only to be informed much later that this is an unlawful arrangement (with the Local Authority in one case asking for the money back and stopping my client having any future DPs…which we managed to overturn on the basis of the lack of info and explanation of the DP system to my client in the first place by the LA)

just a thought…