IS disregards + Premiums + Student Loan disregards

tom9980

Normally im more than able to sort this out myself but this is so complicated and my M.E symptoms are the worst they have been for years i am just not able to cope with this, i need help locating evidence in decision makers guides and the JCP and DWP website where possible.

Basically i need someone to say that im not crazy not seeing things yet still the DWP seem to say different and have this morning written to me to tell me i am no longer entitled to claim IS and will have to reclaim HB and Council tax. I am convinced they are wrong and have not correctly disregarded everything and applied the legislation correctly. Obviously i will be writing back for a reconsideration, apparently im not entitled to appeal at all but i believe their figures are incorrect and also some of the following seem to have been have convieniently forgotten by the decision maker.

Some background I have been ill for approx 12 years and claiming Income support for about 9 years, i was not entitled to IB at that time because i hadnt paid NI i fell ill at 17 so had only worked briefly for the summer of 1996. I dont believe the youth rules were in effect then or the DWP made a mistake with my claim, to be honest im not sure i was so ill my mum did everything. In the end we claimed IS for me instead with the help of a wonderful lady at DIAL.

In October 2006 i moved in with my partner who is a student now in the final year of her course. She gets student loans which i know count for 42 (sometimes 43) weeks of the year as income. We got approx £4 per week after her loans and our savings were deducted during the summer months the period of 10 weeks we got the full amount we are entitled to.

Now my IS rates are £94.95 for a couple and what i believe to be the Disability Premium for a couple of £36.85 because i have been ill for more than 364 days. Now i wrote a thread a few months ago asking about disregards and people here assured me that i should get a £20 disregard because of this premium however they insist that my partners student loans should only get a £10 disregard despite their own website saying this

Higher disregards
For some people there is a higher earnings disregard. In the following cases the first £20.00 of your and your partner’s joint earnings are ignored:
if you are a lone parent
if you get a disability premium (or you would get it if you were not an in-patient or living in a care home)

I believe ever since we moved in together we may have been entitled to a £20 disregard and therefore be entitled to an extra £10 per week am i wrong? i get the premium so why not the full £20???. I explained all of this clearly in a letter and even asked them to write to me and give me details why we would not be entitled to the £20 disregard if this was the case, they ignored this and just said they were right and we should only get £10 disregarded. I decided not to bother to follow this up because my health has been getting worse during the last few months i just dont need the hassle.

Another problem is im finding it hard to get more information from a more official source about which parts of Student Loans should be disregarded for the purposes of benefits, i know parts should be deducted from the loans to cover my partners expenses such as travel and Books/Equipment it says so on the Jobcentre website here. I would like to know the exact figures the best i have found was this

the amount given for books and equipment. For the academic year 2007/08 this is £370; and
the amount given for travel costs. For the academic year 2007/08 this is £290. If the loan includes a specified sum for travel any extra is disregarded in addition to the fixed amount.

Does anyone know what the rate of deductions for expenses are for the 2008/2009 terms are? id love to be able to quote their own decision makers guides or the exact legislation.

im convinced they are wrong please help! obviously i will be off to CAB and DIAL as soon as im able. But its nice to have some ammunition.

Thanks

[Deleted User]

wow tbh i havent a clue,and you seem to know probably as much as anyone at cab might,in your circumstances I would consider contacting my MP so he/she can raise the points you make higher up the food chain as you appear to be hitting a brickwall with the benefits people,who to be fair arent always as fully trained as they might be in more difficult/less than ordinary cases.
Good luck

jul22

Tom

I'm not sure what the disregards are for books and travel for the tax year 08/09, but I will find out and get back to you later. The student loan then attracts a further disregard of £10 (irrespective of whether you are entitled to the disability premium or not). Part time earnings for a Lone Parent attract a disregard of £20, but as stated, the student loan only attracts a disregard of £10.

stazi

DWP DMG is here-
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/publications/dwp/dmg/

tom9980

jul22 wrote: »

Tom

I'm not sure what the disregards are for books and travel for the tax year 08/09, but I will find out and get back to you later. The student loan then attracts a further disregard of £10 (irrespective of whether you are entitled to the disability premium or not). Part time earnings for a Lone Parent attract a disregard of £20, but as stated, the student loan only attracts a disregard of £10.

I really appreciate you looking this up for me thanks.

I know that they must deduct £10 for student loans they have done this.

I believe they have forgotten that i get the disability premium therefore shouldnt our claim recieve a £20 disregard not just a £10 disregard?. Im trying to find this in the DM guide its huge not had much luck so far though.

I also know the maximum disregard is £20 per week.

I definatley believe they have not disregarded an amount for her expenses, she gets given a list of around 20 books and each one costs £15 at least!. To not give her any money for her expenses so that she can educate herself and get a job Teaching, which then gets us off benefits entireley has really annoyed me. If the amount is £600 this works out at more than £10 a week which means we are then entitled to IS again, so it really does matter.

They also seem to have incorrectly worked out the simple mathmatics of this as well, only one of the figures multiples correctly to her loan amount the other one is £298.20 too much. I should point out my partner gets the max loan and grant because her parents earn under £18k a year so she gets no help from her parents like a normal student would.

So far ive been doing it the simple 42 weeks Loans count as income so i divide her loans by 42, i guess they instead use official term dates and instead divide her loans into days before converting it back to per week. I will look into this and work it out this way too to make sure my figures are accurate.

I plan on ringing them again today if i can find enough evidence in the Decision makers guide, they fobbed me off yesterday but i wasnt explaining myself very well. I hate being ill.

Thankyou everyone for your help any more advice is greatly appreciated.

tom9980

Just a quick update ive read huge amounts of the DM guide. Why should a claimant have to do this? The DWP must learn to correctly train their [STRIKE]monkeys[/STRIKE] staff, at the very least they should be able to add, subtract, multiply and divide.

Volume 6, chapter 30, 30290 - This states they should deduct expenses for books and travel. [STRIKE]Appendix 2 of chapter 30 also gives the rates for 2007/2008 as £370 for books/equipment and £290 for travelling expenses, thats £660 they have not disregarded from our claim. The guide doesnt give a rate for 2008/2009 it may even be more. Looking at the past year figures we could be entitled to something around £673 for her expenses id love to know their updated figures but i guess they havent updated the DMG yet, hopefully jul22 will be able to find out.[/STRIKE] I found the 2008/2009 figures in the memo section of the DMG which updates the guide. The memo 22/08 Student amendment regulations 2008, this state’s £295 for travel costs and £380 for books and equipment for the year 2008/2009. This amount needs to be disregarded from her student loan to cover her expenses.

Now i will try and find more info on the £10 or £20 disregard situation so far nothing specific within the DMG but lots on council websites among others that we should get £20 per week disregarded due to the disability premium.

PS sorry if im rambling mostly to myself im using this thread to keep myself on task and motivated.

real1314

"Higher disregards
For some people there is a higher earnings disregard. In the following cases the first £20.00 of your and your partner’s joint earnings are ignored:
if you are a lone parent
if you get a disability premium (or you would get it if you were not an in-patient or living in a care home)"

The key word is "earnings" - a student loan is not earned income so it does not get a £20 disregard. Anyone who assured you that you would get a £20 disregard against a student loan was wrong.
Or maybe you didn't specify and people assumed you meant earned income?

How much is her student loan?

tom9980

Her student loan is £3101 (the max she can claim this year) and she gets a Student Grant for £2835 because her family is low income.

I did realise that they may have a rule that meant we would only get £10 disregarded per week because its not "earned" but its not specific and doesnt seem to rule out the possibility that we would in fact get the £20 disregard because i get the Income support Disability premium. I will ask but i dont hold out any hope for this.

Either way it doesnt matter because with or without the £20 disregard the £10 disregard is fine and them correctly disregarding £675 for her expenses which they have failed to do and using the correct figure for her grant instead of a figure almost £300 more means we go from not being entitled to IS to £8.54 a week. This knock on effect means we get full HB and council tax as well as my perscriptions paid so it does save us a huge amount of money.

My calculations work out as

Student Loan = £3101 minus £675 expenses = £2426 divide 42 weeks = £57.76 per week
Student Grant = £2835 divide 42 weeks = £67.50

£57.76 + £67.50 = £125.26 + £8 for savings income = £133.26

£133.26 subtract £10 disregard = £123.26 total income

We are entitled to £131.80 to live off for a couple with the disability premium added on top.

£131.80 subtract £123.26 = £8.54 per week Income support should be paid.