The Department for Work and Pensions is consulting on changes to Carer’s Allowance. They want to know how the system can be improved to better reflect modern patterns of care, work and earnings.
Many carers and their dependents rely on Carer’s Allowance and other benefits to pay for day-to-day essentials. As such, DWP would like to gather any relevant evidence they can from the Feeding Britain network that they could submit.
There are two consultation questions in particular they would be grateful to get your views on:
- How could the system be improved to better support carers with fluctuating earnings? Should the Department look to put in place more predictable ways of averaging earnings or keep the current approach?
- Around two-thirds of people receiving Carers’ Allowance also receive Universal Credit. This can include additional support for carers through a carer addition. Where someone receives both benefits, Carer’s Allowance is taken into account as income, meaning the amount of Universal Credit is increased by the carer addition but then reduced by the income from Carer’s Allowance.
Carer’s Allowance gives rise to a more generous National Insurance contribution than Universal Credit, but universal Credit is paid at a higher rate than Carer’s Allowance and has more generous treatment of earnings. Carer’s Allowance is an individual benefit which ignores capital or income other than earnings, whereas Universal Credit is a means-tested household benefit.
The Department is considering how best the two systems can work together in the future so that it is easier to understand.
How should the Department ensure that the support for unpaid carers through Carer’s Allowance and Universal Credit works more effectively together for those who receive both?
The full details of the consultaion can be read here.
