It seems to myself and a collaegue that claimants with children who are on Income Support will suffer a direct cut in their income when they are switched to Child Tax Credit. We work it out like this:
The child premium and family premium of Income Support will be changed to the family element and child element of Tax Credit.
The child element is £1,625 a year per child, which works out at £31.25 a week. But the child premium for Income Support is £42.27 a week. The family element is £545 a year, which works out at £10.48 a week. But the family premium in Income Support is £15.95 a week.
Even when you take child benefit into account, this still looks like a cut in income.
Is this how it works out? Or have we got our sums wrong? We'd really like to hear what other advisers think.

I've just done a quick calculation for lone parent with 2 children. For Child Tax Credit I've followed the instructions in CPAG Welfare Benefits and Tax Credits (pp 1338 - 1339). I get weekly CTC to be £72.94 + CB £27.55 + IS £55.65 = £156.14. For pre transfer I get IS £128.59 + CB £27.55 = £156.14. I have not gone through any calculations with disability elements/premiums for children.

Many thanks

Shaun

I think you maybe have your sums wrong here. My understanding is that they should be on roughly the same income when taking into account Child Benefit.

On your figures above, for a single child CTC would be 31.25+10.48 and on top of this CB of 16.50 = 58.23. This is about the same as 42.27+15.95 on IS. The important thing is that CB is paid on top of ctc when it is taken into account as income for IS.