Claiming CTC & Child Benefit for children who are in care

kt33uk

One of my relatives children were taken into care about 5 months ago. She still gets CTC and Child benefit for both of the children. I would have thought that she should not be still getting these benefits for them. Have read on the DWP site that it is basically down to the individual to notify DWP of these changes.

Just wanted to know if anybody knows how long you are entitled to keep benefits for when your children go into care.

SuziQ

I would have thought they will have to repay this money,for sure.

[Deleted User]

Changes to the children you're responsible for

You must tell us if one of your children leaves home to live with someone else. This includes a child who's:

• taken into care - or placed with a foster family
• has been sentenced to four months or more in custody or detention

You'll also have to let us know if a child or young person:

• leaves full-time education or approved training up to 31 August after their 16th birthday
• starts training that's provided as part of their job
• gets a paid job and they're usually paid to work for 24 hours or more a week
• starts to claim Income Support, Incapacity Benefit, Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance or tax credits in their own right

The above information is from the HMRC (TCO) website:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/taxcredits/tell-us-changes.htm

If a child is in the care of "the state", all costs for the child are being paid toward the upkeep and welfare of the child by the taxpayer.

The parent should no longer be claiming benefits for the children - therefore she is techinically commiting benefit fraud!

Normally TCO would be notified by social services.

You should advise the relative to contact TCO him/herself and if they do not you should call them (anonymously if you prefer) to report 3rd party non-compliance.

kt33uk

I had read that on the website so I knew they should have notified them. The thing was the kids being placed into care was supposed to be a temporary thing but it now looks like they will be there for a long time so to me she should not be getting any benefits for them. Thanks for the advice I will speak to her and see what she says and in all honesty if she does not inform them then I will do it on her behalf.

kt33uk

God I didn't realise it was so long ago I posted this thread. :eek:

Right these kids are still in care and the parents are still getting CTC and CB for them. There are 2 children, one from their marriage and another from a previous relationship. The child from the marriage was placed into the care of his paternal grandparents at the time, while the other child was placed with a foster carer. Last February the Grandparents started claiming CTC and CB for the child they have care of, well I have recently found out that the parents are still claiming for the child as well. It is now coming up on 2 years since these children were placed into care and they are not coming home - court case last year to remove parental rights, but they are still able to claim. They even managed to put in a claim to the local council for a clothing and footwear grant for the oldest one who is at primary school. First thing foster carer knew of this was when the child was coming home with money that was supposed to pay for her school dinners.

I still can't get my head around how this happens. It has been reported to the benefit agency on numerous occasions and they are still allowed to receive money for children that they don't have in their care.

What worries me is that a local drug addict had her 3 children taken into care. They were in care for nearly a year and she was still allowed to collect benefit for them. She was getting CTC, CB and claiming IB as well, so you can imagine how much money she was getting every week. Well even though this was reported to the benefits agency she still continued to get it. Unfortunately no happy ending to this story, as she had no kids to spend all that money on she just bought more and more drugs and was found dead in her flat. She left behind 4 kids the youngest had been born 12 weeks before she died and the oldest only 9. Why aren't benefits stopped the minute children are taken into care?

[Deleted User]

They should be and the Law says they are not entiltled to claim. Why should they be when the Local Authority is now up to £7000 per week to keep the child in care and they are no longer caring for the child. However that works on the basis the parent informs the various agencies the children are not there.
The Local Authority do not do this, they are working on keeping the children safe to worry about phoning benefits. They 'should' come unstuck if grandparents start claiming for them as the CB reference should be spotted as being used in two claims.

If you (or someone) has reported them on the phone line for this and it has gone ignored I would and did in the case of a family member who's child I took in, write a letter to the manager of the benefits agency and HMRC. They paid attention to this in my case and stopped their claims.

This type of thing makes me angry, that the 'parent' gets away with getting this money meant for the care of children, to carry on the boozy, drug fueled lifestyle which resulted in their children being taken away in the first place! But then I have very personal experience of this but managed to put a halt to it

kt33uk

Thanks _shel. I have reported them myself at least once a month since I first posted on here using the online fraud page but they still seem to be getting the benefit. I find it shocking that they have gotten away with claiming for children that they no longer have care of. The scary part is that although they have all this money coming in and no kids to spend it on, they are always short of money. I may just write in instead, maybe they will pay more attention to a written report than the online thing that they constantly advertise on TV.