In a panic please help. AET self employed carer transitional protection ending

Yamor

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81919661#Comment_81919661

I understand that the reason why they decided to remove TP in this situation is because they used the AET as a threshold to decide whether you are to be considered working or not working, and if your earnings reduce it is therefore considered to be a significant change of circumstances.

On legacy benefits, if you stopped working, you would have had to move from Working Tax Credit to an out-of-work benefit (JSA/ESA/IS), and your entitlement would have been recalculated from scratch. So, to continue with TP based on legacy benefit entitlement at the point of migration was considered to be wrong.

EmmaSalmon66

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81919836#Comment_81919836

No, sports council allows the part of the grant for earnings to be spread and averaged across the period of the grant. Art council does not. that was specifically spelled out to me by the appeal manager.

Yamor

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81919998#Comment_81919998

Do you mean that the Sports Council will only pay out the grant over a period of time, or that they will pay it in one lump sum, but UC will allow you to recognise the income over time?

If the first, then yes, it makes sense, but if the second, then that has nothing to do with the Sports Council, but to do with UC, and the UC legislation does not allow for such an option.

EmmaSalmon66

yes the second.

anyway I am just back from my tribunal and both the judge and the DWP representative agreed that for all intents and purposes the grants from Sports Council and Arts Council are identical and ought to be treated the same, and it is likely that its because nobody has challenged it.

They agreed that what had happened was incredibly unfair and they tried looking at lots of ways to overturn it, and WANTED to overturn it, but as the rules currently stood they could not. It was quite a surreal experience. They said it certainly was not in the spirit of what TPP was designed to do.

They both recommended I take it to my MP to raise in parliament to get the rules changed regarding how grants and unusual earnings were treated for SE

The DWP rep also encouraged me to put in a complaint against the lack of advice (as had I held off applying for the grant for 5 days, it would have fallen in the second month) and the way nobody knew what was going on and gave me alot of conflicting information. He hoped I would be copmpensated.

Neither had realised either that if you have no commitments, for whatever reason, you obviously have no work coach, which means that quite often any messages in your journal - which you are encouraged to use - disappear into the ther and nobody answers them for sometimes weeks

Yamor

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81920533#Comment_81920533

Could anyone explain why grants from the Sports Council are (supposedly) dealt with differently? How it works legally?

On a slightly separate point, when you received the grant from the Arts Council, did you get a breakdown as to what it was intended to cover?

8dayweek

Self-Employment isn’t my specialist subject and I’d need to look it up properly… but as a really rough rule of thumb if the grant is taxable then it’s reported as SE income, but if it’s not then it’s not counted as SE income (and you also can’t add expenses you pay out of said grant, either).

There’s a part of the ADM with a list of some of the more common grants and how they’re treated but I can’t for the life of me think what it specifically falls under.

8dayweek

And from memory, any part of a Sports Award that is intended for living expenses is taken fully into account as unearned income (so £ for £ deduction).

huckster

When they write these complex rules, does Parliament consider the very small amount of time that Job Centre staff or Case Managers have available to review guidance, answer any claimant questions and make sure that guidance is advised/applied correctly?

Typically, full time Job Centre Work Coaches will have over 200 claimants on their UC case loads and hold over 100 appointments each week ( less if they only deal with self employment, but most of their days will be speaking to people at appointments). And Case Managers if full time will have over 2000 UC claims on their case loads).

8dayweek

In a word - no. However, there are routes to ask for support, clarification on guidance, lines to take etc.

Whilst a myriad of different circumstances can fall under banner of UC - I think it’s safe to say that the general principle is it’s a means-tested low income benefit.

When you get into the realms of people making use of tax efficiencies (for example) to prune / smooth / tidy their earnings, although permitted, is not in the spirit of things.

Tax Credits were an entirely different ball game to UC - low income benefit yes, but not means-tested.

So whilst several weird and wonderful scenarios have been considered and captured within the UC Guidance / Regs etc, these will be less of your “routine” cases and more of your “exceptional” cases.

UC leans towards “you should explore all avenues for support first and foremost and any support you do get will be deducted from the amount UC will pay” whereas Tax Credits was “even though you’ve got £60k in the bank, we’ll give you a bump because your wages are low”.

No opinion either way but my perception from the inside is that the benefits are “culturally” different and that’s where a lot of the more complex queries stem from.