How on earth does the dwp work out the carers allowance???

[cherrymonster]

hi, i have recently been awarded DLA for ds2. i have put in a claim for carers allowance but i dont know how the bloody hell they work it out! i have had a letter from income support saying that they are reducing my IS because i am receiving carers allowance. My DLA was backdated to oct 22nd, they are backdating the carers allowance to oct 27th. my problem is, they have added a premium on to my IS because i am caring for someone, then reduced my IS because i get carers allowance. i know they are giving me a lump payment of the CA on 2nd feb but i cant work out how much it will be. my IS is 60.50 a week, they have added 27.75 because i am caring for ds2, and my CA is 50.55. please help, i need to know how much i am getting so i can plan what i need to do with it.

i think the way it works is they add on the carers premium then take off what you receive in carers allowance and pay you the balance so....if your basic IS is £60.50 and the carers premium is £27.75 making £88.25 in total, you would then get IS of £37.70 and keep the carers allowance of £50.55?

whats that, about 11 weeks then, so you should get £556.05 in backdated carers allowance. this shouldnt affect your IS claim i dont think.

actually thats 14 weeks till the 2nd feb so £707.70?

aha! i have been sat here trying to work it out since i got the letter on monday! i have an a-level in maths and couldnt for the life of me work out what they were doing. but dont they have to take some off the carers allowance for the fact that i have been getting 60.50 in IS since they date they awarded the CA?

yeah they did for me , mke sure you check tht you informed child tax credit there is apreuium of your have child that is dissabled

have done that already. what i need to know is how much will they take off the lump sum because i have been getting income support?

I am in the same position as you, infact almost the same dates (my payments will start on the 16th Feb).

I presumed we would get the carers premium (£27.75) backdated, so for 11 weeks it would be £305.25.

Although I could be completely wrong, so will watch this thread with interest.

my payments are due to start between 27th jan and 2nd feb. i just have no idea how they are going to do it.

Carers Allowance is so convoluted. It is about time they stopped using it as a stop gap and started to treat us carers with more dignity.
We 'work' for about 35p an hour, we can only do a proper job that pays less then £95 a week so most of us give that up cos bosses don't like all the time off caring entails. And when you apply for benefits CA is classed as taxable income.
They should treat CA as a proper job so you would come off IS or JSA and you would then get WTC to make the money up.
If you need help and go through an agency they are paid through CA but they get a proper wage with benefits like sick pay and hoilday pay. Think of how much the governmet saves by getting parents to pick up the shortfall.

Sorry about the rant but me and dp look after ds (9 asd) full time apart from the 6 hours when at school and whilst we wouldn' have it any other way i suppose we do feel a little under stress. Been 9 years without sleep.

hi, i am not looking at going to work, as i have two children who are not yet school age, as well as ds1, and ds2 who i get the CA and DLA for. i have been told that i have been awarded CA, and that i will be getting it back paid from 27th oct but not how much i will be getting on the 2nd feb when they pay it.