Cold Weather Payment on UC

born_again

>Just to clarify I am the only person in my household in receipt of Universal credit and I live with children aged under 5, however the children are not mine but my brother and his wifes, neither of whom receive Universal credit.<

In reality the under 5 does not live with you, you live with their family. I take it that the house is theirs & not yours?

calcotti

KB32 said:

Also when the children were born I never informed UC so they wouldn't be aware that I have any children under 5 living with me

No need for you tell them because it’s Irrelevant to your claim.

poppy12345

KB32 said:

huckster said:

The eligibility criteria for the CWP is written into the UC claim system, so the payment is made automatically to those claimants who are eligible for the payments. 

As you don't meet any of the eligibility criteria  you would never be considered for the payments. Does not matter if the parents of the child under 5 do not claim benefits. Perhaps the parents if they were struggling financially could apply for UC or apply for other help available e.g. local Council welfare.

Also when the children were born I never informed UC so they wouldn't be aware that I have any children under 5 living with me therefore the payment would not be automatically paid even if I was eligible as they would be missing this key information.

Why would you inform them anyway? The children aren't yours, they are your brothers and his wife.

Spoonie_Turtle

Just goes to show that the people working with the system need to be trained better to understand eligibility for things.  I know UC doesn't administer the CWP but it would be useful for claimants when faced with incomplete/inaccurate information to be able to get actual answers from work coaches.

Even better would be if the information online were complete and accurate, but it also needs to be easily understood and some things (not this) have so many exceptions or so many different ways of qualifying that to explain them all would lose the comprehensibility.  In which case having work coaches at least understand the basics and know where to look to clarify more complex situations would be extremely useful to claimants.  Or even team members in the call centres with more thorough training who can answer questions.  

[I know that realistically, none of those things are likely to happen.  We can wish whilst still acknowledging reality!]

calcotti

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Just goes to show that the people working with the system need to be trained better to understand eligibility for things.  I know UC doesn't administer the CWP but it would be useful for claimants when faced with incomplete/inaccurate information to be able to get actual answers from work coaches.

I’d like them to first be trained in how UC itself works, there is an astonishing lack of understanding about basic things such as how the relevant period for LCWRA element works. There must be many claimants who have been paid incorrectly but don’t know.

Muttleythefrog

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Just goes to show that the people working with the system need to be trained better to understand eligibility for things.  I know UC doesn't administer the CWP but it would be useful for claimants when faced with incomplete/inaccurate information to be able to get actual answers from work coaches.

Even better would be if the information online were complete and accurate, but it also needs to be easily understood and some things (not this) have so many exceptions or so many different ways of qualifying that to explain them all would lose the comprehensibility.  In which case having work coaches at least understand the basics and know where to look to clarify more complex situations would be extremely useful to claimants.  Or even team members in the call centres with more thorough training who can answer questions.  

[I know that realistically, none of those things are likely to happen.  We can wish whilst still acknowledging reality!]

Very true.... I mean we had a bit of a nightmare when my wife became eligible for UC on our claim due to leaving immigration control. The system worked well... reported the change and a correct decision was made. However then had to face some buffoon on the phone in an arranged appointment who then insisted my wife had to start looking for work.... we explained she was a full time carer and so we needed the carer element added and her work commitment dropped... he responded saying I'll make her first preferred job type as a carer... I explained no... she won't need any work commitments as she is my carer.. we need to know how to report that so Universal Credit is correctly set up... he said there's no such thing as a carer element and that it is time my wife looked for work as it is over a year she's been on the benefit waiting for a decision... I explained she had not waited over a year for a decision and that she had previously been subject to no recourse to public funds so was not able to receive UC monies and that this had recently changed as her status had changed. He said he'd never heard of no recourse to public funds and re-asserted she'd been waiting over a year for a decision on entitlement.

He went on to say she should be claiming Carer's Allowance which is nothing to do with UC.... I said our information was she could instead just apply for the carer element of UC.. he again said there was no such thing and she either looks for work or applies for Carer's Allowance... he then proceeded to give us the number to claim CA (which turned out incorrect) and said he'd reschedule to resolve her work commitments if CA had not been added to system. I put the phone down and called UC.... an agent said 'just go into report a change section and select the caring for someone option'.. which resolved the matter in a couple minutes... even automatically cancelling the rescheduled work commitments call that had just appeared. 

People will often assume these people know what they're talking about in the same way you expect a dentist to understand a fair bit about things in your mouth. And in the case of this thread people will often assume official governmental department pages are factually accurate and comprehensive. In the past when my wife did have a NRPF condition we trusted the government website when it said NHS dental treatment would have to be paid for... we paid hundreds before some indication we may not have to.... I used the government's own website in quote from two separate locations to argue we should get backdated refunds and won.

Thanks to this site also someone in almost identical situation to that we'd been in reported a different level of benefits.... which seemed to include a couple rate for Enhanced Disability Premium for IR ESA where wife had NRPF. I assumed our benefit award was correct according to law but asked them to confirm at which point they eventually determine we'd been underpaid for years.... wrote an entirely unhelpful letter to us saying they were putting x into our bank account and not explaining what for or what decision had been taken.

Country is going to the dogs! It does seem a bit hit and miss whether you get good advice or not from DWP staff and governmental department websites (info, guidance, forms etc) seem often to take an age to get corrected/updated.

born_again

KB32 said:

born_again said:

>Just to clarify I am the only person in my household in receipt of Universal credit and I live with children aged under 5, however the children are not mine but my brother and his wifes, neither of whom receive Universal credit.<

In reality the under 5 does not live with you, you live with their family. I take it that the house is theirs & not yours?

Belongs to parents so neither of us and we share all the bills, unfortunately can't afford to move at the moment. Of course if the parents were claiming UC I would not even ask this question, it's just the info on gov.uk has confused me so I just wanted some clarity as it does not state anywhere about having to be parents/guardians or having them on your claim, although common sense would suggest that surely this would have to be the case.

Thanks you.

Sadly, I'm not sure what needs clearing up, as you can not claim for your brothers children as part of your claim, so why would you think you can for CWP?

calcotti

born_again said:, I'm not sure what needs clearing up, as you can not claim for your brothers children as part of your claim, so why would you think you can for CWP?

I don’t think anything needs clearing up. OP has accepted that he’s not entitled and agrees that that both logical and what he expected. He’s explained that he only asked because the gov.uk information is ambiguous and he wanted to check.

born_again

calcotti said:

born_again said:, I'm not sure what needs clearing up, as you can not claim for your brothers children as part of your claim, so why would you think you can for CWP?

I don’t think anything needs clearing up. OP has accepted that he’s not entitled and agrees that that both logical and what he expected. He’s explained that he only asked because the gov.uk information is ambiguous and he wanted to check.

OP said  > it's just the info on gov.uk has confused me so I just wanted some clarity as it does not state anywhere about having to be parents/guardians or having them on your claim,   although common sense would suggest that surely this would have to be the case.<

I guess they could go through every permutation of claim & say, yes or no. But would run to many pages & as we know people give up very easily with long reads.

To me it is clear, as it will only come into play if you are already claiming for a under 5. But as per this thread others have different views 🤷‍♀️

huckster

This thread like many is about unclear Government policies and help available . People are struggling and need to have clearer information from Government.

During cost of living crisis, Government attempts to target financial help to different people, just makes the whole benefit system very difficult to understand and navigate (for public, Advice Services and DWP staff)

Yes CWP's are not new, but given Government have been all over the media advertising how much support they are providing, you would think they would have thought about making information easier to understand. And OP has highlighted the CWP Gov.uk page as one example of poor communications. And this leads to many unnecessary phone calls and journal messages on UC claims.

@Spoonie_Turtle mentions staff training time and I am sure allocating regular specific training time would be welcomed by DWP staff. Demands on Job Centre Work Coaches and Service Centre Case Managers is increasing all of the time.  DWP are currently having to recruit Work Coaches and Case Managers in many parts of the country, as they keep losing staff.