£650 one-off Cost of Living Payment Question

phdwho

From the government factsheet https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-living-support/cost-of-living-support-factsheet-26-may-2022

"More than 8 million households on means tested benefits will receive a payment of £650 this year, made in two instalments. This includes all households receiving the following benefits:"

How is this going to be processed? Will it be paid on an individual basis, to everyone in receipt of a qualifying benefit? (In my case income relaed ESA). Or is it one per household, to be decided, presumably, according to the circumstances of the recognised head of household. If the latter, won't that require an enormous amount of admin, having to look up every single person in receipt of an eligible benefit and then, somehow, check if they are the head of their household (or not)?

Does anyone know more about this? 

DE_612183

Good question - it is one per household - it may be they use the electricity suppliers data and work through for each address whether a benefit is registered at that address or not.

I'm not up-to-date with benefits but surely when you claim any benefit they already take into account anyone already in the household who has some form of income - benefit or not.
 

Alice_Holt

DE_612183 said:

Good question - it is one per household - it may be they use the electricity suppliers data and work through for each address whether a benefit is registered at that address or not.

I'm not up-to-date with benefits but surely when you claim any benefit they already take into account anyone already in the household who has some form of income - benefit or not.
 

      You are muddling up the £400 energy grant (to be received in instalments on your electricity bills ) and the £650 cost of living payment for those in receipt of certain benefits. The £650 will be paid into claimants bank account in two tranches.

   "I'm not up-to-date with benefits".
   Consequently the information you have given, sadly, is incorrect.
 The definition of a Benefit Household is different to that normally understood by the word Household.  As an example, a parent and their non-dependent son / daughter can be a separate Benefit Households / Unit although living in the same house.     

phdwho

Alice_Holt said:

DE_612183 said:

Good question - it is one per household - it may be they use the electricity suppliers data and work through for each address whether a benefit is registered at that address or not.

I'm not up-to-date with benefits but surely when you claim any benefit they already take into account anyone already in the household who has some form of income - benefit or not.
 

      You are muddling up the £400 energy grant (to be received in instalments on your electricity bills ) and the £650 cost of living payment for those in receipt of certain benefits. The £650 will be paid into claimants bank account in two tranches.

   "I'm not up-to-date with benefits".
   Consequently the information you have given, sadly, is incorrect.
 The definition of a Benefit Household is different to that normally understood by the word Household.  As an example, a parent and their non-dependent son / daughter can be a separate Benefit Households / Unit although living in the same house.     

Thank you, Are we absolutely certain of this though?

sheramber

If you have a joint claim with a partner, you will get one payment of £650 for both of you, paid in 2 lump sums from July 2022 and in autumn 2022, if eligible.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/cost-of-living-payment

poppy12345

It refers to it as "households" although 2 people living in the same household who are not partners are classed as different benefit claimants, it's not 100% clear whether they will each receive the £650.

DE_612183 said:

I'm not up-to-date with benefits but surely when you claim any benefit they already take into account anyone already in the household who has some form of income - benefit or not.

Not sure why they would use the data from energy suppliers for this.

DE_612183 said:

I'm not up-to-date with benefits but surely when you claim any benefit they already take into account anyone already in the household who has some form of income - benefit or not.

You are not correct here. Two different people in the same household are not affected by someone else's income, unless they are living together as a couple.

phdwho

Clear as mud really

sammyjammy

phdwho said:

Clear as mud really

Its literally been announced a week ago, people have taken the time to tell you what is known at this stage, the details will be released later when the Gov Depts that have to action these payments have worked out how it can be done.  You'll just have to be patient.

People guessing doesn't help anyone.

phdwho

I'm not criticisng anyone here, but the government for not laying out clearly its plans from the outset

p00hsticks

phdwho said:

I'm not criticisng anyone here, but the government for not laying out clearly its plans from the outset

The issue there is that if the government were to check the feasibility and practicalities of these (what often seem to be  back-of-fag packet) promises that they come up with all those that are going to be at at the sharp end of actually having to implement them, it would involve so many people and departments tthat the news would leak out well before they made any offical announcement. 

Which would defeat the object of having any such consulation on the first place, since once leaked they'd have to confirm or deny all the rumours of what's happening. So instead they announce to everyone what they intend is going to happen and leave it to the poor grunts in the front end of the IT and customer service departments to work out how they're actually going to be able to deliver them and to deal with the torrent of unanswerable queries from customers.

(As you may detect from my tone, I've been there and got the T-shirt!)

kaMelo

The problem is no matter how many scenarios you try to think of when formulating policy there will always be edge cases that no one could have reasonably thought of as some people live complex lives.

If you had to consult and come up with a solution on every single possible scenario before implementation it would take years. Doing it this way helps the vast majority whilst those edge cases get fixed when they appear. Tough for those implementing it but that's just the way it is