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CPAG in Scotland's Disabled Children and their Families Ebulletin - January 2010
Dear Colleague,
Welcome to the latest edition of CPAG in Scotland's Disabled Children and their Families e-bulletin keeping you up-to-date with relevant news and developments.
Contents:
CPAG in Scotland news and events
- Training
News
- Changes planned to DLA renewal claims
- Additional child trust fund payments for disabled children
- Cold weather payments
- Advice line Q&A; Maintenance when a young person claims ESA
CPAG in Scotland news and events
Training
Intro to benefits for disabled children and their families - HALF-DAY
Benefits for disabled children are under claimed. Identifying potential entitlement can make a real difference to family income. This introductory level course is suitable for anyone who works with families and wants to know about benefit issues in order to give basic advice or to refer on for specialist help. It does not assume any previous knowledge of the benefit or tax credit systems.
We can offer this course in-house or at a venue near you for a total cost of £150 for up to 20 participants. If you would like to discuss arranging this course please contact us on 0141 552 3303 or email acarr@cpagscotland.org.uk
News
Changes planned to DLA renewal claims
As part of the ongoing ‘correctness programme’ aimed at ensuring levels of error in disability living allowance (DLA) awards are minimised, the DWP are considering changes to how renewal claims which indicate reduced needs are to be dealt with.
DLA is rarely awarded indefinitely with awards for children often limited to two years. Parents and advisers will be familiar with the situation where, on receipt of a renewal form, the decision maker decides that a child’s needs have reduced sufficiently (in comparison to those of a child of the same age without a disability) such that the existing award rate should be reduced - or benefit refused altogether. In such cases established practice has been to allow the existing higher award to continue until the expiry date. As renewal claims can be made up to six months before this expiry date this continuation of the award could allow parents faced with an unfavourable decision time to challenge the award before it was reduced.
However the DWP are considering making it normal practice to put the new level of award into payment as soon as the renewal decision is made. A pilot exercise began earlier this month. Should this proposed change to practice be adopted it may mean that parents will have to weigh up whether it is better to submit renewals as early as possible in the six- month period up to the expiry date (with the consequent risk that benefit may be reduced earlier) or to wait until nearer the expiry date (and risk a disruption to benefit while waiting for the renewal claim to be decided).
In a related change, although renewal claims can still be made from six-months before the existing award expires, renewal packs are now being issued routinely at 20 (rather than 26) weeks with the intention that this time be reduced further to 14 weeks later in 2010. Additionally, routine reminders to parents who delay completing renewal packs are no longer to be issued.
Additional child trust fund payments for disabled children
As mentioned in the July 2009 e-bulletin from this April additional annual government payments of £100 or £200 are to be made for each child in receipt of DLA . More details have been released on the payment arrangements. No claim is required and HMRC expect to receive information from DWP to identify all eligible children. The first additional payment for a child in receipt of DLA at any point in 2009-10 will be made just after this April, with the payment for a child in receipt of DLA in the current tax year following later in the year. Thereafter payments for the coming tax year are expected to be made as early after each April as possible. General information about the scheme is available here.
Cold weather payments
Some families with a disabled child may be eligible for cold weather payments. These weekly £25 payments are made when the average temperature where you live is recorded as, or forecast to be, zero degrees celsius or below over seven consecutive days. There is no need to apply for the payments as they should be made automatically but the DWP have produced a helpful tool which allows you to check by postcode whether a payment should be made for any particular week. Families need to be in receipt of income support, pension credit, income-based jobseeker’s allowance or income-related employment and support allowance and have a child under 5 or be in receipt of a disabled child premium or the disability element of child tax credit. View further information here
Advice line Q & A; Child maintenance when a young person claims ESA
Q. I have been told by the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (formerly the CSA) on a number of occasions that when a young person in full-time non-advanced education opts to claim ESA (rather than their parent continuing to claim child benefit and child tax credit for them) they will no longer be treated as a qualifying child for maintenance purposes. As this would mean the absent parent would no longer be required to contribute to the family income, this would be a significant factor in assessing whether the family are better off with the young person claiming ESA or not. Is this correct?
A. The advice is not correct. A young person of under 19 who remains in full-time non-advanced education remains a qualifying child for child maintenance purposes whether they claim ESA in their own right or their parent continues to receive CB for them. A recent amendment to the child support rules makes this clear- whether a young person remains a qualifying child within that scheme does make receipt of child benefit a necessary condition for some young people not in education but this does not apply in those cases where the young person is in full-time non-advanced education. The legislation is available here and a useful CMEC leaflet on qualifying children can be accessed here.
Our Disabled young people factsheet outlines the situations where a young person in education or training may be able to chose between ESA and CB/CTC. CPAG do not normally offer advice on child support legislation but we have included this query as it highlights an issue which needs to be taken into account when choosing which benefit to claim.
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