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UC and housing benefit for people in work
The figures look correct for a single person who is fit for work - slight variations depending how you convert monthly to weekly for comparison with HB and the work allowance is last year’s figure before it was uprated slightly. But on the whole I think the figures are reliable.
Single people fit for work make up some of the caseload in supported accommodation, very little if any of it in temporary. So we are not looking at massive numbers.
On the cliff-edge point, yes if no longer entitled to UC they revert to the traditional HB method which is less generous. UC claimants who work and who live in temp/supported have all of their income ignored for HB purposes, so once they are above the level of earnings where they qualify for 1p a month of UC there is a drop in total income from all sources. One thing worth bearing in mind here though is that the reason for a month’s loss of UC could be five single-weekly or two four-weekly wages paid in that month. The HB calculation would use HB rules for earnings, which takes the average weekly amount into account. That would eliminate or reduce the cliff-edge in cases of that type. Generally, I think the way to look at this is that they get lucky while working on UC and then life reverts to normal if they earn too much to qualify for UC. UC is a good thing for these claimants, you only face the cliff edge if you were up on the cliff to start with.
On the work allowance point, I might well be wrong about this but as far as I can see the work allowance for specified accommodation is the higher amount, but in temporary accommodation the lower work allowance applies. Reg 5A has been inserted into the UC Transitional Provisions Regs 2014 to modify the work allowance for claimants in temp acc, but it does not mention specified accommodation and I cannot see anything else that does the same job for specified accommodation. That’s not to say there isn’t something: UC regs have a habit of hiding in unexpected places (see the thread this week about reaching Pension Credit age for example).
Finally - underlying entitlement to UC?? Never heard of this. Is the suggestion that the claimant is still passported to full HB if they have earnings in this “underlying” zone? Sorry, don’t buy that at all.
On the work allowance point, I might well be wrong about this but as far as I can see the work allowance for specified accommodation is the higher amount, but in temporary accommodation the lower work allowance applies.
I’ve looked into this and come to the same conclusion…