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Child’s Education Interrupted
Young person aged 16, not going to college at the moment because of a serious illness, wants to claim Universal Credit. Mum is content for this to happen as the amount of her CB lost is less than the corresponding amount of UC gained by the young person. I assume there will be no CTC (or equivalent under UC) lost as well, but will check.
In this scenario is there any risk of a UC claim being turned down, on the grounds (if this is true) that the young person’s education has only been interrupted due to illness, so they should be deemed under Regulation 6 of the CB regulations to still be a QYP who is “receiving education” and thus not eligible for UC unless one of the relevant exceptions apply? Or in practice is Regulation 6 only used to permit those responsible for young people whose education has been interrupted to continue to get CB and CTC where that is what they want to do?
Hi James,
I think you’ve got the option of arguing both ways - either they’re a QYP due to interruption or they can claim UC in their own right, and they shouldn’t be penalised for being a student. I suppose with DWP, there’s always the possibility that they’ll refuse as they think they should be treated as a student, but I think you could challenge it.
I suppose it does also depend how quickly they are likely to return to education, because once back in education, they’ll need PIP for it to stay in payment.
Thanks Rebecca
My very limited experience tells me that the DWP’s default position in practice is that a post-16 person is not a QYP unless you provide evidence that they are in relevant education; so that they wouldn’t use Regulation 6 against a young person who was trying to claim UC. But we’ll see.