Benefits confusion

[WonderWoop]

Hi there
I am helping a friend with a benefits claim but have never claimed myself. It's all a bit confusing so any help/advice welcomed...

She is a single parent and has UC and child benefit. She's not working

First issue:
She has a two year old and we are trying to understand childcare hours plus funding. We believe she is eligible for 2 year old funding (15 hours?) and have applied to the council, awaiting update from them.
Can she also claim childcare funding (85% funded, she pays the remaining 15%) in order to get more time at the nursery?
And if so can she apply for this even though she's not yet working? It would enable her to get a job if she had this in place. The 15 hours (in reality 11 as 15 is term-time) isn't sufficient

Second issue:
When she starts working how do we figure out how this impacts her benefits? Can she work say 20 hours a week at min wage and still claim?

Third issue/question:
She also wants to apply for housing benefit in order to get her own place. Practically speaking, how does this work? Does she secure a place and then apply, or apply and then look for a place?

Sorry a lot of questions there, all advice do gratefully received.

She needs to go onto entitledto.com and put in different scenarios which will tell her how much she'd be entitled to. It's not 100% accurate but pretty close.

You can't claim HB if you don't actually pay rent, they check. If she's entitled to HB it would already be in her UC. I don't know if you can claim for childcare for working if you don't work yet.
Entitled to or turn2us for benefit calculation.

Thanks, entitled to is great

She doesn't rent yet but wants to. I didn't know if you have to rent somewhere and then claim (sounds like that would mean a wait for the money) or you can try to line it go to the start of the rental contract.

Do the job centre have anyone you can go through all this with?

She will have to pay for the childcare upfront and then add it to her UC claim each month with reciepts AFAIK. So no way to "have it in place" ahead of time really.

If/when she starts being liable for rent she needs to add this to her existing UC claim (there is a place to update housing costs) she could check entitled to website to see what she might qualify for in advance.

She needs to have a job offer or be working to get the 85% childcare costs. And it is in arrears so she needs to magically find the first months childcare costs upfront (never sure why UC think this is good set up but there we are )

Housing costs in also paid more than a month in arrears

Rent- she can get help with rent through UC only once she has a tenancy and can prove liability for the rent. She would report this as a change to where she lives and what it costs. The amount she gets if privately rented would depend on the Local Housing Allowance for her area depending on her circumstances

www.gov.uk/guidance/local-housing-allowance

Childcare - this is available through UC once she starts work. On-going payments are paid in arrears as another element on her UC claim. However it is possible to get help with 'Upfront Childcare Costs' when she first starts work. This would be paid through the Flexible Support Fund and would be a non-repayable grant.

www.gov.uk/guidance/universal-credit-childcare-costs#get-help-with-the-upfront-cost-of-childcare

Working - because she has a child she is entitled to a work allowance which means she can earn up to a certain level and it would have no effect on her UC. As she has no housing costs she would be able to earn £573 per month without it affecting her UC. Anything above this would reduce her UC at a rate of 55%. For example if she earned £1000 only £234.85 would be deducted from her UC payments.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-work-allowances/universal-credit-work-allowances

Sorry - this is the up to date info for LHA rates

www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-housing-allowance-lha-rates-applicable-from-april-2022-to-march-2023

Thanks so much @ThreeFeetTall and @WhichBitchIsWhich

It's just so chicken and egg

The childcare is more important than the rent, we can come back to that one when we sort out the childcare.

She is planning to go to a cleaning agency for some cleaning work. So I guess she does that, gets some sort of contract if possible and then puts in the claim asap

Hi carben that's so helpful
Thank you so much!

She currently gets:
£77.29 UC
£123.36 child benefit each week
So £896 a month.

The cleaning agency pay £10ph so if she works 16 hours per week she would earn £693 per month.

Based on that she would lose £120 * 0.55 = £66 benefit but obviously would have her £693 pay.

Do you know if (I will keep researching) the childcare benefit has an earnings cap?

Yes she can claim additional 85% back for childcare as well as the 15 hours but the 15 hours is on term time and not everyone gets it at aged 2 - she would need to see if she qualifies.
Wages affect Uc as described above, but if she starts renting somewhere then her work allowance reduces from the £573 to £344, so £344 is disregarded from wages before earnings reduce her UC.
Once she finds somewhere to live then she reports her rent liability, submits a tenancy agreement. She will need to look up the local housing allowance in her area for 2 bedrooms if private renting. they will only pay rent element up to that amount. Rent element is added to other elements ( standard, child, childcare) and earnings reduce the whole award..

Thanks @Babyroobs
The child is 3 in October so I guess she qualifies for the 3 year hours from January anyway. I'm pretty sure she would get the 2 year ones now but waiting on the council.

The LhA allowance is £1150 and she can rent for £1250-£1300 we believe, so can pay the difference.

Thanks for the info re: the £344 vs the £573. So when has rent too, her benefit reduces further. I will do some calculations on that.

How does she get £123 child benefit per week? It's usually £20. Do you mean tax credits?

She won't be getting child tax credits and UC together.

Maybe I'm calling it the wrong thing? This is what she got on her first claim

The £869 is all UC. She would be paid Child Benefit separately either weekly or 4 weekly. When she does start renting she can claim help with Council Tax through the LA. This is not part of UC.

Hey again carben so helpful.
is the child benefit additional to 'children' below?
Do you think we need to put a separate claim in for that or might it trigger given the system knows she has children?

Sorry I now see it's completely separate. Wow what a minefield

Hi OP,

It's kind of you to help your friend but also a big responsibility and difficult if you don't know about benefits yourself. I will give some basic info here but I strongly advise you to encourage your friend to contact her local Citizens Advice as they can talk her through everything and give advice tailored to her specific circumstances.
www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/contact-us/contact-us/contact-us/#h-find-your-nearest-citizens-advice

It's very likely that your friend is already claiming child benefit, which is £36.25/week for 2 children, paid every 4 weeks (£145).

Universal Credit (the main means-tested benefit for working age people) includes lots of different elements which people can be eligible for depending on their circumstances. She gets the standard element (which everyone gets) plus the child element. If she starts renting she'll also get the housing element and if she starts working and using childcare, she'll get the childcare element.

At the moment, she is eligible for some free childcare because she has no income other than benefits (you didn't mention child maintenance? but that's usually ignored).
Reference:
Your 2-year-old can get free childcare if you live in England and get one of the following benefits:
[...]
Universal Credit, and your household income is £15,400 a year or less after tax, not including benefit payments
from www.gov.uk/help-with-childcare-costs/free-childcare-2-year-olds

And she can find more information about help with childcare costs through UC at www.understandinguniversalcredit.gov.uk/new-to-universal-credit/children-and-childcare/

From January (the term after her child turns 3) she will get 15h/w childcare regardless of income and other circumstances, and this increases to 30h/w if she is working and earning £152/week or more.

Everyone else has already pointed out that if she rents privately her housing element will be restricted to the 2 bedroom LHA rate. She could also contact her local council's housing advice team for advice and help to find somewhere, and could consider applying for social housing (priority level depends on her circumstances, it's unlikely to be a quick fix but could be wise to at least get on the list). You haven't said where she's living now... perhaps a relationship has ended recently and she's staying with you or someone else? Anyway if she contacts Citizens Advice they'll ask about this in case there's more advice they can offer on this topic.

There are lots of hypotheticals at the moment - if she finds a job, if she starts renting, etc. But as PPs pointed out, she/you can use a benefit calculator (eg Entitledto or Turn2Us) to see different scenarios. She can also ask citizens advice to do benefit calculations for her, if it's all too confusing.

Thank you @AnotherEmma that's such a helpful post. She doesn't speak much English and has only been in the UK for about 3 months, hence why I'm helping her and also why child benefit is a new application. I have saved your post and we will go through line by line. I think I have the main points now, just need to take each stage step by step. Thanks so much

You're welcome.
It's unusual to be able to claim benefits after less than 3 months in the UK, but perhaps she's from Ukraine as exceptions have been made for Ukrainian refugees. In any case it's clearly not an issue, since she's had her first UC payment.
Here's info about how to claim Child Benefit - she can ask for it to be backdated by up to 3 months.
www.gov.uk/child-benefit

Yes she is from Ukraine, she previously lived in the UK a few years ago... that's how we met... so maybe that has made a difference (I'm not sure though). She is definitely in the system now as she has her first payment.

No she won't be able to apply for 85% childcare, that's only if she's working. She won't be able to claim housing benefit, she will get housing element in UC depending on her situation and if she works it will just be deducted from her UC payment, I think its 55p for every pound after around 300 odd pound earned.

No, you can only apply for housing element once you have a tenancy agreement