New to DLA. Advice re UC and Carers

[Ljjb]

Hi all,

I am probably not the first to ask but is there anyone in the same situation as me and can't seem to find much clarification regarding carer's allowance, carer's element, disability element and Universal credit.

My query is:

I am a single parent. I currently recieve:
Standard living allowance (single 25+)
Child element for 2 children (both born after 2017)
Housing benefit

My little boy has just been awarded DLA MRC today.

I am aware that UC do not touch this.

I can recieve an extra disability element for my little boy via UC aswell.

My confusion lies with Carer's element and Carer's allowance.

If I claim Carer's element is this an additional payment so my UC is topped up?

Can you claim for Carer's allowance aswell as the Carer's element?

I know carer's is deductable from my UC, so am I actually better off applying for both and getting the deducted part of Carer's allowance weekly or am I worse off and just claim the carer's element and then nothing is due to be deducted from my UC and should then recieve top up for Carer's element and disability element in my monthly UC statement.

Sorry I am just confused by it all.

Thank you

Sorry i meant to say i know carers allowance is deductable. Am i right carers element though is a top up x

You can have the carers element added to to claim without applying for carers allowance. If you apply for carers allowance they will deducted this amount from your monthly UC payment which is about £290 for the month but would get £160 odd top up for carers element plus your weekly carers allowance of £69 something. I’m in scotland so at the moment It works out better for me to get carers allowance and have it deducted each month as every 6 months we get one off payment of £240 because we get carers allowance as part of top scheme Scottish government started.

Plus I find it better for us to have a weekly payment of carers allowance along with our child benefit to help us budget better week to week rather than just one big monthly UC payment.

I’m currently getting cares element each month on my UC will that be deducted from my monthly allowance too ?? I’m confused