Hi Mike
Martha is a lone parent. Her son Mikial (4) has cerebral palsy and so Martha gets DLA for him (middle care, high mobility)
Mikial is going to turn five at the end of September and Martha was told that her Income Support would stop on his fifth birthday and that she would have to move over to Universal Credit.
Is this right?
Sara
Hola Sara,
No It’s not.
Universal Credit is gradually replacing the legacy benefits: Income Support, iESA, iJSA, Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit and Housing Benefit.
Mostly these are closed to new claims, and if you want to make a new claim you have to claim Universal Credit instead.
All of your legacy benefits get rolled into the new UC claim.
This is what DWP calls natural migration.
Income Support is a benefit for people who have a good reason for not jobseeking. The law of Income Support includes a list of these good-reasons, including being a lone parent of a child aged under five.
Often, when a lone parent’s youngest child turns five, her IS stops and she naturally-migrates to UC.
In Martha’s case this does not apply, because being a carer for someone who gets DLA-Care (or PIP-Daily-Living, or Attendance Allowance) also counts as a good reason for not jobseeking.
This means that her Income Support claim can continue even after Mikial’s fifth birthday and there is no need to naturally migrate.
This turns out to be very important for Martha since moving to UC would involve a big benefit cut.
Currently her Child Tax Credit should include an extra £284.58 per month because of Mikial’s disability.
The equivalent extra bit in Universal Credit is only £128.25.
The query didn’t tell me whether Martha is currently claiming Carer’s Allowance in combination with her Income Support and it didn’t tell me the amount of Income Support.
Income Support (and Carer’s Allowance combined) should come to £111.85 per week. This is a basic Personal Allowance of £74.35 plus a Carer’s Premium of £37.50.
I’d check this if I was working with Martha, because it would not be surprising if the Carer’s Premium had been missed out.
If so I’d be asking for a back payment.