Universal Credit and other income advice

fitzykev

Can someone here with good knowledge of the universal credit benifit please help. I have been pushed from pillar to post for nearly a month now. If my wife and  i have an entitlment of 905 pounds with no earnings coming in as my wife is in uni and i am caring full time and on carers element and it states this on are claim that The first £673.00 of your take-home pay does not affect your Universal Credit monthly amount. Every £1.00 you earn in take-home pay over this amount reduces your Universal Credit by 55 pence. 
So we recieve other income of 340 per month. Is that deducted directly of hour entitlment or off the 673 pounds that does not affect our amount. I have four people on my uni credit journal telling me different things. 

KxMx

What is the source of this other income? 

Spoonie_Turtle

fitzykev said:

Can someone here with good knowledge of the universal credit benifit please help. I have been pushed from pillar to post for nearly a month now. If my wife and  i have an entitlment of 905 pounds with no earnings coming in as my wife is in uni and i am caring full time and on carers element and it states this on are claim that The first £673.00 of your take-home pay does not affect your Universal Credit monthly amount. Every £1.00 you earn in take-home pay over this amount reduces your Universal Credit by 55 pence. 
So we recieve other income of 340 per month. Is that deducted directly of hour entitlment or off the 673 pounds that does not affect our amount. I have four people on my uni credit journal telling me different things. 

As above, what is that other income?

Take-home pay is for earnings - 'earned income' - usually from employment/self-employment.  Almost all other types of income will be classed as 'unearned income' (despite some of those types of income being very much earned, like Carers Allowance or private pensions) and be deducted in full.

fitzykev

Spoonie_Turtle said:

fitzykev said:

Can someone here with good knowledge of the universal credit benifit please help. I have been pushed from pillar to post for nearly a month now. If my wife and  i have an entitlment of 905 pounds with no earnings coming in as my wife is in uni and i am caring full time and on carers element and it states this on are claim that The first £673.00 of your take-home pay does not affect your Universal Credit monthly amount. Every £1.00 you earn in take-home pay over this amount reduces your Universal Credit by 55 pence. 
So we recieve other income of 340 per month. Is that deducted directly of hour entitlment or off the 673 pounds that does not affect our amount. I have four people on my uni credit journal telling me different things. 

As above, what is that other income?

Take-home pay is for earnings - 'earned income' - usually from employment/self-employment.  Almost all other types of income will be classed as 'unearned income' (despite some of those types of income being very much earned, like Carers Allowance or private pensions) and be deducted in full.

the other income is my wifes nursing university bursary, she has been told by the bursary office that this is not classed as income based bursary but it is course related so its for books and even things like equipment she needs like blood pressure monitors. also she was in placment their for five weeks and had to pay £6.50 a day car parking at the holsptal she was doing placment at. one person told us it will be deducted from our entitlment one person told us it will be deducted from the first £673 of our take home pay one said some will be deducted of entitlemnt and one said as it course related it does not count. i have been going around in circles for 3 to 4 weeks now. i am goint to type in the journal what i was told yesterday on phone that it will be deducted out of our take home pay threshold and that i would like my case manager to confirm or deny this as he has been sitting in the background letting the others do his dirty work. i have an appointment with my local MP or at least with her assistant on friday. should i mention this in the journal or does that sound like a threat? on this forum i mentioned the other income is 340 a month that was wrong i should have typed 430 per month of with they are classing 320 of it as other income.

huckster

Other income is deducted in full.  Only employment earnings are affected by the £673 work allowance and 55p taper rate.

Sounds like the University finance deduction is wrong. UC should not take into account bursaries for expenses related to studies/work experience. UC should only take into account student maintenance loans available.

Where are you based? Northern Ireland student finance as it applies to UC is different, when compared with rest of UK. In NI, it appears that those going through medical training cannot apply for student maintenance loans and it is only the bursary amount that relates to living expenses that UC should consider as other income.

fitzykev

huckster said:

Other income is deducted in full.  Only employment earnings are affected by the £673 work allowance and 55p taper rate.

Sounds like the University finance deduction is wrong. UC should not take into account bursaries for expenses related to studies/work experience. UC should only take into account student maintenance loans available.

Where are you based? Northern Ireland student finance as it applies to UC is different, when compared with rest of UK. In NI, it appears that those going through medical training cannot apply for student maintenance loans and it is only the bursary amount that relates to living expenses that UC should consider as other income.

Yes in N.ireland. This nursing bursary is for course expenses and not personal. And they have went and put it down as other income. The fact i have been told four different things on my journal where each person that has told me different and they can clearly see what the other advisor has said is shocking.

teaselMay

Which sounds to be the case if they're using £320 as other income when it's £430 being received. Several of us told you it would be taken into account a few weeks ago:


https://www.rcn.org.uk/Get-Help/Member-support-services/Welfare-Service/Understanding-benefits/Students-and-benefits/Universal-Credit
" Northern Ireland

HSC Bursary

If you are studying in Northern Ireland and are eligible for the Nursing and Midwifery Student Bursary, you will have maintenance elements of the bursary taken into account:

• Non means tested bursary
• Dependants’ Allowances

Are all taken into consideration as income over the 12 months of the course, or your course end date if you are in the final year.

The following elements of the Bursary should be disregarded:

• Registered Childcare Costs
• Parent Learning Allowance
• Clinical Placement Expenses"

fitzykev

teaselMay said:

Which sounds to be the case if they're using £320 as other income when it's £430 being received. Several of us told you it would be taken into account a few weeks ago:


https://www.rcn.org.uk/Get-Help/Member-support-services/Welfare-Service/Understanding-benefits/Students-and-benefits/Universal-Credit
" Northern Ireland

HSC Bursary

If you are studying in Northern Ireland and are eligible for the Nursing and Midwifery Student Bursary, you will have maintenance elements of the bursary taken into account:

• Non means tested bursary
• Dependants’ Allowances

Are all taken into consideration as income over the 12 months of the course, or your course end date if you are in the final year.

The following elements of the Bursary should be disregarded:

• Registered Childcare Costs
• Parent Learning Allowance
• Clinical Placement Expenses"

And i am going around in circles.  She was told by the bursary office and thr make the call helpline that noyhing should be deducted as this bursary is completely course expense related for example car parking at hospitals when on placement, equipment like blood pressure monitors to use on the course and even over night expenses for accomadation when placed in a hospital or care home out of town.

kaMelo

Thel clinical placement allowance, for covering additional costs while on placement, is additional to the bursary. 

Part of The normal bursary is for general living costs and will be counted for UC purposes.

born_again

This is the latest of several thread poster has started on this subject. Just to give people a heads up to advice already given. 👍

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6586328/uni-credit-do-i-need-to-report-university-bursary#latest

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6601041/where-will-our-universal-credit-stand-with-carers-element-added/p1

huckster

Part of the issue appears to due to the clarity of the information provided to UC.

Suggest sending a journal message and asking to provide the student bursary information again, as the other benefit income deduction appears to be wrong.

You may have to educate UC with all information available about treatment of the bursary.