I've been working with my colleagues on a last ditch take-up campaign to ensure that as many disabled people as possible in our district claim legacy benefits with appropriate disability premiums before Universal Credit arrives next spring and sweeps all such things away. With this in mind, we've been putting a leaflet together on the severe disability premium.
For those of you not in the know, the severe disability premium, abbreviated to SDP (amusing if you're old enough to remember 1980s politics) is an extra element of means-tested benefit calculations for people receiving certain disability benefits (Attendance Allowance, PIP at either rate for daily living or DLA at the middle or higher rate for care) if they also a) live alone* and b) have no-one receiving Carer's Allowance for looking after them.
Well, that's what it always used to say. Since April 2016 b) should add that no-one must be receiving the Universal Credit Carer's Element for looking after them. This is a shift in policy since the Carer's Premium, included in the calculation of many legacy means-tested benefits, is not treated this way.
This is a more major change than seems to have been spotted at the time and one which could leave many disabled people significantly out of pocket as the UC full service rolls out and existing claims for means-tested benefits and tax credits transfer over. He's an example showing some potential problems:
Cynthia is a pensioner getting Attendance Allowance. Her income is above the basic Pension Credit level and her savings would usually exclude her from Housing or Council Tax Benefit but, because she lives alone and has no-one claiming Carer's Allowance for looking after her, her Pension Credit assessment includes an extra £62.45 per week SDP. This may only give her entitlement to a small amount of Pension Credit but this 'passports' her to maximum Housing and Council Tax Benefit.
Cynthia's daughter Joanna is her primary carer, spending over 35 hours per week looking after her. Joanna doesn't claim Carer's Allowance because she has a part-time job paying her more than the earnings limit for this benefit. She does, however, claim Housing Benefit and Child Tax Credit. Joanna's current situation does not impact on Cynthia's SDP.
Joanna has a change of circumstances - let's say she separates from a partner. She's in a full service UC area so now has to claim UC rather than legacy benefits. As part of this process, she discloses that she is a carer. This triggers a Carer Element with her UC award which will terminate her mother's entitlement to the SDP.
If Joanna knows this will happen (which suggests she works part-time as a benefits adviser, as no-one else is likely to know!) she has only two options; decrease the hours she spends caring for her mother to remove eligibility for this element or knowingly 'fail to disclose' the extent of her caring, which appears to put her on the wrong side of the law, especially as she is doing so specifically to gain extra benefit income for her mother (albeit at a financial loss to herself).
What she cannot do - the option open to potential Carer's Allowance claimants - is simply opt to carry on caring for her mother and not 'claim' the Carer's Element, as she cannot pick and choose which elements are included in her UC award. She can choose not to claim UC, but in that case she will get no support with raising her children or paying her rent.
The same predicament arises for many carers when they get 'migrated' to UC. The calculations - whether they stand to receive transitional protection as potential losers from the shift, or if they gain - will include a Carer's Element by default if they declare they are carers. Many of the carers won't know this could impact their 'caree's' entitlement - even those who did know about the Carer's Allowance prohibition. Most of the 'carees' will know even less.
The outcome can only be more financial losses for the most severely disabled people - including many of those whose benefits we are about to try and maximise - along with overpayments, prosecutions, family arguments and general misery.
Don't you just love it when they 'simplify' the benefits system?
*'live alone' in SDP terms means there is no other adult in the household who isn't either also receiving one of the disability benefit rates listed or registered blind.
