Claiming carer’s allowance, how will it affect other benefits?

Hogglet

Can anyone please tell me the if claiming carer’s allowance would have any impact on other benefits.

18 year old who still lives at home but is not in education and is not working is looking to claim carer’s allowance for taking care of his disabled father. His father gets enhanced pip (both), housing benefit and council tax benefit. I think he may get a disability premium for housing benefit. His wife works part time but is over the threshold for claiming carer’s allowance. The son has offered to step up and help out with dad’s care but I was wondering if it would impact on what they currently receive.

Thanks all.

calcotti

Because his father does not live alone he will not be getting a Severe Disability Premium in his benefits (unless the wife also gets a disability benefit). It is the SDP that is lost when CA is claimed by somebody so if SDP is not in payment claiming CA will not affect the existing benefits.

However, if he currently has no income, rather than claim Carer's Allowance son would be better off claiming Universal Credit. If he declares that he is caring his UC entitlement will include a carer element and the maximum UC payable will be the standard allowance (£342.72) plus carer element (£162.92) making the total entitlement £505.64/month which is worth more than Carer's Allowance of £67.25/week (equivalent to £291.41/month). This assumes he does not have more than £16,000 of savings which would exclude him from claiming UC.

What are the parental circumstances? Are they working age or pension age? If working age or mixed age they may be able to claim UC themselves in which case wife could have carer element rather than son (there is no earnings limit for the carer element of UC). A benefit calculator will allow them to work out if they have any entitlement. https://www.gov.uk/benefits-calculators. Before making any decisions they need to compare with their existing situation (and bear in mind that UC currently includes an uplift of about £90/month which is due to disappear in April next year).