Universal Credit Working Hours

ES19901990

That’s great thank you, what is light touch involve

NedS

ES19901990 said:

That’s great thank you, what is light touch involve

Light Touch is (currently) a work group or regime on UC where the claimant does not have to commit to looking for work or more work as they are deemed to be earning enough, so DWP leave them alone (no regular appointments). Their commitments will only require them to log in to their account regularly and notify of any changes in their circumstance in exchange for receiving their UC payments.

Yamor

Worth noting that in Budget 2023, the government announced that they would be getting rid of the couples threshold, meaning that a claimant would only be placed in the light touch regime if they themselves earned at least £892.

It is still unknown if the current government will be proceeding with this change or not.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ujiversal_credit_removing_the_co/response/2738127/attach/3/Response FOI2024 58476.pdf

huckster

Quite often the non working partners on couple UC claims do not like being placed in the light touch category as a result of their working partner earning above the couple threshold.  They see it as a negative move by Job Centres to treat them as if they might not want to work and therefore don't need Job Centre appointments.

ES19901990

If I was full time employed and self employed part time to raise extra income. Does anyone know how that would work in terms of the Minimum income floor etc?

8dayweek

If the employment was you main job, and the self-employment just extra / additional then you wouldn’t be considered “gainfully self employed” and thus the MIF would not apply. 

ES19901990

Excellent thank you. Would i
just declare the self employed earnings to UC each month?

NedS

ES19901990 said:

Excellent thank you. Would i
just declare the self employed earnings to UC each month?

Essentially, yes.

First you would need to Report a Change and declare that you are both employed and self-employed.

You will have a self-employment appointment called a Gateway, where they will confirm that you are both employed and self-employed, and following that a todo will be created at the end of each UC month for you to report your income and expenses from self-employment. Your PAYE employed earnings will continue to be automatically reported by your employer as before.

ES19901990

Thank you, if I was purely self employed how would AET them work for me and my partner? Would the threshold still be the same between us as a couple?

sorry for all the questions I just have a couple of options and want to make sure I fully understand 

NedS

ES19901990 said:

Thank you, if I was purely self employed how would AET them work for me and my partner? Would the threshold still be the same between us as a couple?

sorry for all the questions I just have a couple of options and want to make sure I fully understand 

Self-employed earnings do not count towards the AET.

If you are gainfully self employed then the AET is not relevant and does not apply to you as you are not expected to be looking for employed work, but to build your self employed income to exceed the Minimum Income Floor (MIF).

The single AET threshold would still apply to your partner even if your self-employed earnings exceeded the couple threshold (as self-employed earnings do not count towards the AET)