I’m a single parent, children 14 and 11. I work 15 hours a week, claim UC and receive middle rate DLA for my 11 year old. I earn over the threshold to be able to claim carers entitlement. I would like to leave my job and start a full time uni course. I’ve asked UC if I would face sanctions if I left my job voluntarily and they said “I could”. Could you please advise how/where I find out what would happen to my UC payments if I did leave work. Thanks
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Buddy19 hi & welcome to the community
Do you have carers element on your uc award?
carers element has no earnings threshold to add it to award (£163.73) - only carers allowance has the earnings threshold & is seperate to uc
if you have carers element you wouldn’t be sanctioned for leaving employment as you have no work commitments
UC will always say “could” as until you did & they knew why & checked commitments they couldnt say.
In terms of uni you can attend - stufent finance is deducted from uc £4£ apart from a £110 monthly disregard so its very much you’re getting the same amount just some from uc & the rest from student finance however it helps to manage the payments from student finance into monthly amounts as they are usually paid every 3 months.
When you are a student with sf deductions - work commitments are switched off
We do have a student section also which may be helpful to have a read through some of them posts & see other peoples situations & on our main website page to see how different areas of the uk work their student finance & what is applicable & counted for uc purposes -
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I didn’t know there was a difference between carers allowance and carers element. I’ve looked all through my uc account and can’t seem to see anything about carers allowance or element. I can’t see anything about any work commitments. I just can’t see how I’m going to be able to take the leap of leaving my job, 21 years in the NHS, without knowing for sure what income I’ll have. My breakdown of payments this month were: standard allowance £324.84, support for 2 children £519.58, 1 disabled £128.29. Deductions £115.29, total payment of £858Comment
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You need to login to your uc
go to “home” - report a change - caring for someone & add the details there
select the date of change as the date dla was awarded
confirm all details & this will add the carer element to your award
then pop a note on journal asking for carers element backdating to be sent to a dm due to being unaware the element had no earnings threshold
this will add £163.73 to your award
If you were to stop working, you will have no commitments & cant be sanctioned as a carer for leaving employment
Financially your award will show;
standard £324.84
disabled child £128.89
children £519.58
carers element £163.73
= £1,137.04 total uc
deductions for debts/advances will come off that if you have any at a maximum of £81.21
No earnings means no deductions for that
You can continue claiming carers element whilst being a ft student as the uc system isnt set up to recognise that you cant be a carer while studying - however it isn’t protected from student finance deductions so if your sf was enough to zero award that would include all elements. But your sf would be more than the deduction by at least £110 a month & you may qualify for special support element of sf meaning you would have a chunk of your maintenance loan disregarded if you get maintenance loan
You do need to be aware if you do choose to go to uni you must take all student finance they offer at the full amount - if you dont - uc will base their calculation on the full amount regardless. So if offered £10k take the full £10k. Dont think if you take only £5k uc will use £5k as they won’t. They will always use the maximum available to youComment
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