Partner taking 6 months of to care for her father

fishermanrus

My partner has decided to take 6 months careers leave from her Job which entitles her to the time of unpaid, she is doing this to look after her elderly father, she will not have an income of any kind for those six months and we should be able to live on a little savings (less than 4K) and my ESA but I wanted to know if this will affect my ESA. I am on Contribution based ESA and in the support group (Hence the contribution based) I also get PIP with standard on daily living and enhanced on Mobility, this will be our only income for six months but will this affect how much ESA I get? Do I have to inform DWP of this change in circumstances? My OH will not be claiming Careers allowance. 

Please only advise if you genuinely know what you are talking about as there is a lot of bad information on the web. Thanks in advance. 

TELLIT01

Your Conts based ESA will not be affected.  Why does she not want to claim Carers Allowance?  She may be able to claim Universal Credit, although your Conts ESA will be taken into account.  I'm not clear myself on how UC works but I'm sure others will be able to advise.

calcotti

TELLIT01 said:

Your Conts based ESA will not be affected.  Why does she not want to claim Carers Allowance?  She may be able to claim Universal Credit, although your Conts ESA will be taken into account.  I'm not clear myself on how UC works but I'm sure others will be able to advise.

Partner doesn't need to claim UC. OP can ask to have his ESA reviewed for income based entitlement. Income based ESA and contribution based ESA are one benefit (assuming OP is indeed on 'old style' contribution based ESA and not 'new style' ESA.

OH can claim Carers Allowance if father gets a qualifying disability benefit.

tomtom256

calcotti said:

TELLIT01 said:

Your Conts based ESA will not be affected.  Why does she not want to claim Carers Allowance?  She may be able to claim Universal Credit, although your Conts ESA will be taken into account.  I'm not clear myself on how UC works but I'm sure others will be able to advise.

Partner doesn't need to claim UC. OP can ask to have his ESA reviewed for income based entitlement. Income based ESA and contribution based ESA are one benefit (assuming OP is indeed on 'old style' contribution based ESA and not 'new style' ESA.

OH can claim Carers Allowance if father gets a qualifying disability benefit.

Not sure if this is correct, as he will need to add his partner to the claim, in order to make it income related, as the contributions claim is currently a single claim, would that not force a claim to UC for the income related portion?

calcotti

tomtom256 said:

calcotti said:

TELLIT01 said:

Your Conts based ESA will not be affected.  Why does she not want to claim Carers Allowance?  She may be able to claim Universal Credit, although your Conts ESA will be taken into account.  I'm not clear myself on how UC works but I'm sure others will be able to advise.

Partner doesn't need to claim UC. OP can ask to have his ESA reviewed for income based entitlement. Income based ESA and contribution based ESA are one benefit (assuming OP is indeed on 'old style' contribution based ESA and not 'new style' ESA.

OH can claim Carers Allowance if father gets a qualifying disability benefit.

Not sure if this is correct, as he will need to add his partner to the claim, in order to make it income related, as the contributions claim is currently a single claim, would that not force a claim to UC for the income related portion?

I don’t believe so. The partner is not added to the claim, it remains his claim but the fact he has a partner has to be taken into account to assess income based entitlement. Am happy to concede I may be wrong.
Having said that the UC entitlement may be higher than for income based ESA and would give access to the carer element of UC without claiming CA whereas to get the Carer Premium in ESA would require a claim for CA (If parent is getting a Disability Benefit).

tomtom256

calcotti said:

tomtom256 said:

calcotti said:

TELLIT01 said:

Your Conts based ESA will not be affected.  Why does she not want to claim Carers Allowance?  She may be able to claim Universal Credit, although your Conts ESA will be taken into account.  I'm not clear myself on how UC works but I'm sure others will be able to advise.

Partner doesn't need to claim UC. OP can ask to have his ESA reviewed for income based entitlement. Income based ESA and contribution based ESA are one benefit (assuming OP is indeed on 'old style' contribution based ESA and not 'new style' ESA.

OH can claim Carers Allowance if father gets a qualifying disability benefit.

Not sure if this is correct, as he will need to add his partner to the claim, in order to make it income related, as the contributions claim is currently a single claim, would that not force a claim to UC for the income related portion?

I don’t believe so. The partner is not added to the claim, it remains his claim but the fact he has a partner has to be taken into account to assess income based entitlement. Am happy to concede I may be wrong.
Having said that the UC entitlement may be higher than for income based ESA and would give access to the carer element of UC without claiming CA whereas to get the Carer Premium in ESA would require a claim for CA (If parent is getting a Disability Benefit).

I am not saying you are wrong, just wasn't sure if the DWP in there infinite wisdom would try and force a UC claim in this type of scenario?

calcotti

tomtom256 said:

calcotti said:

tomtom256 said: Not sure if this is correct, as he will need to add his partner to the claim, in order to make it income related, as the contributions claim is currently a single claim, would that not force a claim to UC for the income related portion?

I don’t believe so. The partner is not added to the claim, it remains his claim but the fact he has a partner has to be taken into account to assess income based entitlement. Am happy to concede I may be wrong.
Having said that the UC entitlement may be higher than for income based ESA and would give access to the carer element of UC without claiming CA whereas to get the Carer Premium in ESA would require a claim for CA (If parent is getting a Disability Benefit).

I am not saying you are wrong, just wasn't sure if the DWP in there infinite wisdom would try and force a UC claim in this type of scenario?

Strong possibility of DWP indeed saying claim for UC is required - but, in my opinion, would be incorrect. If claimant request review for income based entitlement DWP should, I think, issue ESA3 to be completed and returned to enable entitlement to be determined.

TELLIT01

I'm well out of the loop regarding UC, but I did think that a change from Conts to Income Related claim through adding a partner would result in needing to claim UC.  The exception being those with Conts ESA who had transitioned from IB but hadn't been assessed for Income Related entitlement when they should have been.  I'm happy to be corrected, but there does seem to be uncertainty here about the situation.

calcotti

TELLIT01 said:

I'm well out of the loop regarding UC, but I did think that a change from Conts to Income Related claim through adding a partner would result in needing to claim UC.  

Contribution based and income based ESA are not different benefits. It was the failure of DWP to recognise this that caused the debacle when claimants were transferred from IB. The rectification of the IB to ESA transfer is not an exceptional circumstance, it it a correction of an error caused by a misunderstanding of the law. ESA is one benefit with two routes to entitlement. Asking to be assessed for income based entitlement is not a new claim, it is a request to have entitlement recalculated. Because it is not a new claim it is not prevented by UC rules. When the request for income based entitlement is made details of the partner, their income and savings will be part of the information needed to assess the entitlement of the claimant but the partner is never a claimant. This is completely different to Tax Credits where claims made by a couple are in joint names and a change from single to couple (or in opposite direction) requires a new claim and is therefore prevented by UC rules.

That’s my understanding anyway.

For the avoidance of confusion to anyone reading this, the above comments relate to legacy ESA.for new claims only new style ESA is available and this is a contribution based benefit only.

TELLIT01

Thanks for the clarification calcotti.  What you say does make sense, but that doesn't always mean it's policy.

pmlindyloo

Link supporting Calcotti's understanding:
https://www.welfare-benefits-unit.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/what_triggers_a_claim_for_universal_credit_in_a_full_service_area_1.pdf
Scroll to bottom of chart and also read note ix for further explanation.