Universal payment gone down, not a 6% increase…

[ComeAlongPeggy]

I’ve spent hours on the phone today to help my neighbour (she was on the phone with me but her English isn’t perfect so that’s why I help her). We’ve got nowhere so I wondered if anyone here could help!

She used to get £1423 UC and £322 carers allowance. She also got a 100% council tax reduction.

In May, her carers allowance went up by £5 but her UC dropped to £1400 and she now has to pay 15% council tax (£35 pm).

So she’s now paying £53 per month more in total. Help? The council tax people said she’s been pushed into a different bracket and UC is a pita for them. The UC people say she needs to speak to her case manager but they don’t reply to her messages in her online folder.

Can anyone help me make sense of it?!

You need to look at her online statements to see how UC are arriving at the £1400 figure. It's possible they may have started recovering a debt.

Thank you for being so fast to reply! No previous debt. Nothing has changed in her children’s circumstances or her work circumstances for 2 years. Definitely no debt.

Is she benefit capped? Because whilst universal credit elements have increased individually the benefit cap has not. So she may well be over the cap now and actually seeing a reduction in overall award. The benefit cap is usually on bottom of the UC statement.

@RPH2023 ah. Interesting. I’ll look into that. Just seems harsh for her income to be down by £53 per month rather than being frozen. She has a child with a disability and lives very frugally already 🫣

Council tax reduction may be down to the Council changing its scheme. For some years now every Council in England has it's own scheme, nightmare to advise on.

@Bromptotoo thank you. We spoke to the council and they couldn’t explain it and put it down to UC problems. Seems to be a recurring issue for them.

I’ve actually had to lend her £100 today because her child benefit didn’t arrive - the news tells me that’s a national issue this month!

I've had this issue UC advised me it's because of other payment increases such as child benefit it didn't really seem right to me either my rents gone up but UC has gone down and I was struggling already!!!

@Atomickittyxx so sorry you’ve been through it too. It’s one thing to not increase overall but quite another to decrease payments 🫣

@Atomickittyxx child benefit is disregarded in UC.

If you look on her journal in payments it will break it all down individually including the benefit cap if it is that that's reduced it or if you go in a benefit calculator like entitled2 u can put her info in and it will break it all down including council tax.

@Bromptotoo child benefit is including in the benefit cap though

She shouldn't be benefit capped. Receiving carers and dla etc removes the cap.

@TeaPleaseX thank you. Our other neighbour who used to volunteer for CAB just told me the same!

Ahh then she shouldn’t be benefit capped if she has a child with a disability. I would advise sending a message directly to her work coach on the online journal. Quite often messages left under ‘payments’ don’t get picked up.

Is she claiming everything she can ?

Disability related council tax
Pip or DLA

My mistake forgot carers and dla are exempt from the cap.

Does she claim carer's element as well as carer's allowance? It might be the lack of CE on UC has meant they have missed that she should not be benefit capped.

Mine went down as well, and when I checked, it's the benefit cap has changed, so I'm £100 worse off a month now. And to top it off, I haven't been paid my first wage from my new job. 😳 (Which is my second job, so at least have one small wage coming in aswel)

I can answer this.

Carers is deducted £4£ from UC but because UC is paid monthly and carers every 4 weeks the carers is multiplied by 13 and then dived by 12 to get the monthly amount to deduct from UC. (Because there is 13 monthly payments per year, not 12)

But... because the financial year 24/25 has 53 Mondays, it makes it 14 payments in the year instead of 13 so it's carers x14 then divided by 12 to get the amount deducted from UC.

The 5 pound extra x14 then divided by 12 is the 23 that's missing.

She's not worse off because she'll get the extra that's taken back in carers in the 14th payment

I hope I've explained it OK.

The council tax increase will because the carers is classed as income and the £5 will have tipped her over into a bracket doesn't get 100% reduction anymore.

She won't be benefit capped if she has a disabled child.

My working out might be off but I'm pretty sure it's the 53 Mondays that is the reason.