News
January 2010: Cold weather payments
These are flat-rate payments of £25.00 for any 'period of cold weather.' This means 7 consecutive days where the average temperature is at or below zero degrees centigrade, or is forecast to be, at a specified weather station linked to the claimant's postcode. One payment is made for each period of cold weather.
To qualify, claimants must be receiving:
- state pension credit; or
- income support or income-based jobseeker's allowance - where the applicable amount includes a disability premium, pensioner premium, enhanced disability premium or disabled child premium; or
- income support, income related employment and support allowance, or income-based jobseeker's allowance, where the claimant's family includes a child aged under five; or
- income support, income related employment and support allowance, or income-based jobseeker's allowance where the claimant receives the disability element of child tax credit
- income-related employment and support allowance, where the claimant receives a work related activity component or support component; or
- income-related employment and support allowance, where the claimant has an enhanced disability premium or severe disability premium in their applicable amount.
Cold weather payments should be paid automatically.
ESA and Cold weather payments
Many employment and support allowance claimants have not been awarded their components within the 13 week time frame. DWP have confirmed that claimants who miss out on a cold weather payment because their component has not been awarded should receive manual backdated payments once their component comes into effect.
The payment cannot be made to claimants in residential or nursing care.
These payments are separate to the Winter fuel allowance paid to pensioners.
Latest Versions
The latest version of the Quick Benefits Calculator is 13.10 released September 2009. This version covers the November changes to the treatment of child benefit and savings.
The latest version of the Lisson Grove Benefits Program is 6.94 released January 2010.
The latest version of the Child Support Calculator is 14.05 released October 2009.
November 2009 - Disregard of Child Benefit in Housing and Council Tax Benefit for Working Age Claimants
From 2nd November 2009, child benefit will be fully disregarded when calculating housing and council tax benefit for working age claimants, single claimants aged under 60 and claiming couples where the older partner is aged under 60.
This change will affect families on a low to medium income who do not qualify for income support, income-based jobseeker's allowance or income-related employment and support allowance. These families are subject to a separate means test for housing and council tax benefit. Once their assessed income is greater than a certain amount, they lose £0.20 in council tax for each pound of excess and £0.65 in housing benefit. This means that once the child benefit is disregarded, claimants who pay both rent and council tax may see an increase in income of up to 85% of their child benefit payments.
Who benefits?
- Families who already receive some housing or council tax benefit, but whose benefit is currently reduced because of their income
- Families whose income is currently too high for them to receive council tax benefit or housing benefit, who will become entitled to either or both these benefits once their child benefit is disregarded
- Many parents taking up full time work will have a more favourable better off comparison as less benefit is clawed back once work begins. Unlike temporary incentive payments such as the in-work and return to work credits, the resulting increases in housing and council tax benefit will be indefinite.
Who doesn't benefit?
- Claimants aged 60 or more, and claiming couples where the older partner is aged 60 or more. Child benefit is already fully disregarded in such claims.
- Claimants who receive income support, income-based jobseeker's allowance or income-related employment and support allowance - these claimants do not face a further means test for housing or council tax benefit
- Claimants whose income is too high to claim benefit even when the new disregard applies. But claimants with high child care costs may benefit even if their earnings are quite high.
- Claimants whose income so is low that they already receive the maximum amounts of council tax benefit and housing benefit
- Owner occupiers will generally only benefit from increased council tax benefit
Maximum resulting increase in benefit
| Number of children | Housing Benefit only | Council Tax Benefit only | Housing and Council Tax Benefit |
|---|---|---|---|
| One child | £13.00 | £4.00 | £17.00 |
| Two children | £21.58 | £6.64 | £28.22 |
| Three children | £30.16 | £9.28 | £39.44 |
| Four children | £38.74 | £11.92 | £50.66 |
| Five children | £47.32 | £14.56 | £61.88 |
The maximum increases in benefit will generally be achieved by claimants whose benefit is partially tapered away both before and after their child benefit is disregarded.
November 2009 changes to tariff income threshold for pension age claimants
Claimants are assumed to have income from their savings, and this income counts against the means tested benefits. Income below the so-called tariff income threshold is ignored. For pension credit claims, and claims for housing and council tax benefit where the claimant or at least one partner is aged 60 or more, the tariff income threshold rises from £6,000 to £10,000 on 2nd November 2009. As tariff income for this older claimants is calculated as being £1/week per £500.00 of of savings over the threshold, this can make a difference of up to £8.00 in the tariff income figure. This can have varied effects on benefits entitlement:
- Some claimants will receive an increase in pension credit guarantee credit, or become entitled to it for the first time. Some claimants who only fail to receive guarantee credit because of the assumed tariff income will see very high increases in benefit. This is because there is no upper capital limit for guarantee credit, and receiving any amount of guarantee credit automatically passports the claimant to maximum housing and council tax benefit
- Where claimants become entitled to the guarantee credit for the first time, they will then automatically qualify for maximum council tax benefit and housing benefit.
- Some claimants will receive an increase in pension credit savings credit - if less of their income is clawed back
- Some claimants will receive less in savings credit, usually these claimants will gain more in guarantee credit than they lose in pension credit
- Claimants who do not qualify for pension credit may receive increased amounts of housing or council tax benefit, or qualify for one or both of these benefits for the first time
October 2009 changes to Minimum Wage and Permitted Work limit
From 1st October 2009 the minimum wage will be:
- £5.80 per hour for workers aged 22 or more - an increase of sevenpence per hour
- £4.83 per hour for workers aged 18 - 21 - an increase of sixpence per hour
- £3.57 per hour for workers aged 16 and 17 - an increase of fourpence per hour
The permitted work limit for therepeutic earnings rises from £92.00 to £93.00, also from 1st October.
April 2009 benefits up-rating
New programs have been issued to continuing subscribers.
Pre-Budget Report: Housing Costs
All our programs have been updated to reflect the changes to the treatment of housing costs in the means-tested benefits announced in the Pre-Budget Report.
- for working-age claimants, benefit can be paid on loans up to £200,000, rather than the £100,000 limit previously applied to most claims
- claimants under 60 must wait 13 rather than 39 weeks for benefit.
- for new claimants only, housing costs paid as part of income-based jobseeker's allowance will end after two years.
Employment and Support Allowance
Our programs are fully updated to reflect the introduction of Employment and Support allowance.
Local Housing Allowance
Our benefits programs have been updated to reflect the introduction of the Local Housing Allowance. The programs will calculate the room requirement and request the relevant local housing allowance figure. Local housing allowance figures are available from the rent service website. We hope to have our own local housing allowance server operational shortly. Assuming availability of the raw data from the Rent Service, this will allow customers to look up local housing allowance figures from within the programs.