Employment_Advisor

|Date of Change |Benefit |Change |Additional Information | |April 2011 |Housing |Local Housing Allowance capped at for 1 bed (250), 2 bed (£340), 4 bed (£400) 5 bed rate | | | | |abolished, | | | | |Non-dependant deductions – large increases over next 3 years |Impacts tenants with non dependent adults (adult children etc) living in| | | | |the house. Non–dependents may not always be willing to make up the | | | | |shortfall. | |Jan 2012 |Housing |Local Housing Allowance- single room rent restriction for single people (not LP) under 25 |Could impact on parents with shared care of children. | | | |extended to under 35 | | |April 2013 |Council Tax |Handover of responsibility for CTB schemes to local authorities with a 10% reduced budget. |This will result in review of current exemption categories (excluding | | | | |pensioners) resulting in some who are currently in receipt of CTB either| | | | |receiving less or none at all. This will have to be met from their other| | | | |benefits. | | |Housing |Payments Restricted to the number of bedrooms’ needed’ for occupants of social housing |Applies to working age families. If occupying a house deemed larger than| | | | |their needs they will only get rent covering the rooms deemed necessary | | | | |e.g. if the live in a 3 bed house but are deemed to only need 2 beds | | | | |they will only get rent based on 2 beds. | | | |Local Housing Allowance- rates up rated in line with consumer price index not average market|Housing benefit will no longer be based on what the rent actually costs.| | | |rents. |Shortfalls in rent will have to be found out of other income. Debt and | | | | |evictions are likely to increase. | | | |HB to be used to apply a cap on total benefits income (unless on DLA or WTC) at median |People in receipt of working age benefits will have their total benefit | | | |income(c £350 for single adult, £500 for couple) |capped at either £350 or £500 pw. | | | | |In Bsly we currently have over 100 people over that amount (May 2012) | |April 2011 |Tax Credits |New category for workers aged 60+ who can claim WTC if working over 16hrs at 60+ regardless |Helps older workers to explore reduced hours option. | | | |of whether a disabled worker or have children. | | | | |Childcare element of WTC reduced from 80% to 70% of actual childcare costs up to a capped | | | | |maximum. | | | | |Income threshold for family element of CTC reduces from £50k to £40K per year | | |April 2011 |Tax Credits |Baby addition to CTC Family element scrapped |Families with a child under 1 yr will lose up to £10.50 pw. | |April 2012 |Tax Credits |Couples with children must work at least 24 hours combined per week to qualify previously 16|Impacts on low income families where unable ot increase hours of work | | | |hours. With one working at least 16 hours. |from 16 to 24., some may have to give up work. | | | |50 plus element scrapped |Those aged 50+ moving from unemployment into low paid work no longer | | | | |eligible for WTC. | | | |For all tax credits new rule disregarding an income drop of £2,500 |Tax credits will not increase if income does not drop by more than | | | | |£2,500. | | | |For all tax credits time limit for notifying changes cut from 3 to 1 month | | |Jan 2012 |Income Support(Lone |New claims for IS (lone parents) only if a child is under 5 years. If not then must make |Over 100,000 lone parents switched from IS to JSA since 25.10.10. | | |Parents) |claim for JSA. Existing claimants with no child under 5 will have the benefit removed in |Nominally same benefit rate, but must ‘actively seek’ and be ‘available’| | | |stages. |for work or face JSA sanctions. | |April 2012 |Contributory ESA |Limited to one year for people in the work related activity group. Support group not |Loss of independent income for those with savings or working partners. | | | |affected |Applied retrospectively so will lose benefit immediately. | |April 2013 |DLA &PIP |DLA to be replaced by Personal Independence Payment (PIP) features include: |Loss of DLA for those failing the new PIP criteria. Likely to hit those | | | |20% budget cuts and focus on most disabled. |with less definable issues(e.g. autism, mental health, MS and cancer). | | | |2 rates based in each component based on severely limited/limited ability/limited ability |A double impact for those on low incomes as loss of DLA will mean loss | | | |for daily living activity and /or mobilising activity. |of DLA related premiums. | | | |Medical assessment of all claims using ESA style descriptors focussing on more restricted | | | | |list of essential living tasks | | | | |Longer 6 month qualifying period | | | |Social Fund |Crisis loans (waiting for benefit to be processed) to be replaced by ‘payments on account’. | Funding to local authorities is not ring fenced and there is no | | | |All other crisis loans and community care grants abolished. And budget passed to Local |statutory requirements to provide so likely to be a postcode lottery | | | |Authority. |situation arising. No independent appeal process. | | | | | | |Oct 2013 |Universal Credit |Merge all means tested benefits and tax credits into a single Universal Credit. New claims |Ministers have confirmed that Universal Credit will be introduced across| | | |from Oct 2013. |Britain, starting on a small scale in every region from October 2013 and| | | |Migration to Universal Credit by October 2017 with transition protection. There will be |building up capacity to April 2014, when all new claims to the current | | | |winners and losers under the new system. |benefits and credits will be entirely phased out | J. Dearnley May 2012 Information taken from NAWRA report This should not replace any formal guidance and will not be automatically updated.