DWP update December 2016
Index
Proposed Benefit rates 2017
Tax-Free Childcare
Get Your State Pension Online – New Digital Service
Personal Independence Payment
New Style Employment and Support Allowance
Budgeting Loans:- Customers can now apply using the new online application service
Pension Credit Calculator
Statistics:
Universal Credit Statistics
PIP quarterly official statistics
Consultations:
Funding Reform for Supported Accommodation Sector
Touchbase DWP Ezine
Proposed Benefit Rates April 2017
The proposed benefit and pension rates to be introduced from Monday, 10 April 2017 can be found here. Most personal allowances for working age benefits – JSA, ESA and IS - are frozen as previously announced, but premiums and other benefits, such as disability benefits, are increased by 1%. State Pension is increased by 2.5% due to the triple lock agreement.
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Tax-Free Childcare
Tax-Free Childcare is a new government scheme to help working parents with the cost of childcare. Parents will be able to open an online account, which they can use to pay for childcare from a registered provider. For every £8 a parent pays in, the government will pay in an extra £2. Parents can receive up to £2,000 per child, per year, towards their childcare costs, or £4,000 for disabled children.
Around 2,000 of families will be invited to trial the new Tax Free Childcare scheme between today (21 November) and 31 January 2017, ahead of its official launch early next year. The trial will run until 31 December, with some DWP claimants involved from 28 November.
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Get Your State Pension Online – New Digital Service
DWP is inviting people to use and help test a new digital service to get their State Pension. The ‘Get your State Pension’ is a new digital service for people who want to start receiving their State Pension. The new service is about to be tested with a small random number of people, starting with those living in England or Scotland. It will eventually replace the current State Pension Online service, but until then both services will run in parallel. For more information see word the document below, and draft copy of an invitation letter
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Personal Independence Payment
The "How Your Disability Affects You" form has been updated. The form is provided as an example for support organisations who work with disabled people. It illustrates the information that PIP claimants will be provided with and the questions they will be asked to answer and return to DWP, following their initial call to the PIP claims number. It is not intended to be downloaded and completed. Claimants will be sent a personalised version of the form by post as part of the claims process.
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New Style Employment and Support Allowance
New Guidance has been published on GOV.UK explaining New Style Employment Support and Allowance.
New style ESA can be claimed instead of, or as well as, Universal Credit depending on the claimants circumstances. If both benefits are claimed the new style ESA payment will be deducted from the UC payment.
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Budgeting Loans:- Customers can now apply using the new online application service.
Budgeting Loans are interest free loans that can help to pay for essential items like furniture, clothes, moving costs or hire purchase debts. Customers can apply for a loan if they have been receiving Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, or Pension Credit for at least 6 months.
As a department, we are committed to developing and transforming our services to make it easy and convenient for customers to interact with us. The Budgeting Loans online service enables customers to apply for a loan in minutes using a computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone, and the application is received immediately. With the alternative paper-based application process, customers have to go to their local jobcentre for a claim form or call us to ask for a form to be sent by post, which can take several days.
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Pension Credit Calculator
The new version of the of the Pension Credit calculator can be accessed via this link
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Statistics
Universal Credit Statistics
Universal Credit Statistics recently released show over 800,000 people have now made a claim to Universal Credit – of those receiving Universal Credit, 40% are now in work with an average of more than 12,500 new claims being made to the revolutionary new benefit every week. Read the latest statistics on the number of claims to Universal Credit
PIP quarterly official statistics
On 14 December 2016, we published new statistics on the outcomes of DLA to PIP reassessments. These can be found in the data tables accompanying the December 2016 quarterly release. These statistics will be updated on an annual basis. Personal Independence Payment statistics
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Consultation:-
Funding Reform for Supported Accommodation Sector
Supported housing, which supports some of the most vulnerable people from across the country, will continue to be exempt from the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) cap until 2019. From then the new funding model will protect the sector from the cap with a top-up of additional ring-fenced funding.
This will mean Housing Benefit and the housing element of Universal Credit will focus on paying for core housing costs, whilst the new ring-fenced pot of money will give local authorities greater flexibility to commission services in line with local needs.
The application of the LHA policy for general needs accommodation will also now be aligned with the timing of these plans, so will now be introduced in 2019 instead of 2018.
The consultation period runs for 12 weeks, and will also seek views on how best to fund the provision of short-term housing, such as hostels, refuges and emergency accommodation
Housing is a devolved matter and the appropriate funding will be allocated to the devolved administrations
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Touchbase DWP Ezine:- News and articles from across government for advisers, employers and organisations that help people find jobs.
November edition of DWP Touchbase to view click here
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